Lucia Berlin
Lucia Berlin was an American writer born in Juneau, Alaska, in 1936, whose life was characterized by frequent relocations due to her father's career as a mining engineer. After spending part of her childhood in Texas during World War II, she moved to Santiago, Chile, where she navigated various health challenges, including scoliosis. Berlin's educational journey led her to earn degrees in Spanish and English, and she began her writing career while supporting her family as a house cleaner. She gained recognition in the late 1970s with the release of her first chapbook, "Manual for Cleaning Women," and continued to produce a significant body of work, with her 1990 collection "Homesick: New and Selected Stories" winning an American Book Award. Known for her mastery of the short story form, Berlin's narratives often explored themes of self-discovery and the search for meaning, particularly through the experiences of female characters. Throughout her life, she balanced motherhood and teaching creative writing, ultimately passing away in 2004. Berlin's legacy endures through her poignant storytelling, which draws heavily from her own diverse life experiences.
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Subject Terms
Lucia Berlin
Fiction Writer and Poet
- Born: November 12, 1936
- Birthplace: Juneau, Alaska
- Died: November 12, 2004
- Place of death: Marina del Rey, California
Biography
Born in Juneau, Alaska, in 1936, Lucia Berlin led a largely rootless childhood because her father, Wendell Theodore Brown, was a mining engineer and the family moved nearly every year, from one mining town to the next, throughout North America. It was not until World War II, when Brown served overseas as a naval officer, that Berlin’s mother, Mary Emma Magruder, was able to settle temporarily with her two daughters in her native Texas. They spent the war years in El Paso, the town where Berlin’s parents first met when her father was a student at the Texas School of Mines and her mother was studying drama.
When Brown returned from naval service after the war, the family moved to Santiago, Chile, where Berlin spent her adolescence. She suffered from a variety of health problems throughout her life and was particularly plagued by a curvature of the spine, which eventually destroyed one of her lungs. The frequent displacements of Berlin’s early life, combined with the double scoliosis that prevented her from indulging in many of the pastimes of youth, contributed to her cultivation of a rich interior life.
Berlin returned to the United States to earn a B.A. in Spanish and in English and a M.A. from the University of New Mexico. It was during this time that she met her first husband, but he abandoned her when she was pregnant with their second child. Berlin subsequently married her second husband, the jazz pianist Race Newton, and had two more children. She eventually raised all four boys on her own. Manual for Cleaning Women, her first chapbook of poetry, was published during the late 1970’s, when Berlin supported her family by cleaning houses.
In the 1980’s, Berlin lived in Oakland, California, and continued to publish stories in magazines. She collected many of these works in full-length volumes. The best of the tales from the first half of her writing career appeared in her 1990 collection entitled Homesick: New and Selected Stories published by Black Sparrow Press. This landmark volume won an American Book Award, and Berlin was also the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Jack London Short Story Award. In 1994, Berlin moved to Boulder to teach creative writing at the University of Colorado, and she soon established a reputation there as an effective teacher. Health problems forced her relocation to California in 2000, and she died on her birthday, November 12, 2004, in Marina del Rey.
Considered a master of the traditional short story form, Lucia Berlin based her stories on her own experiences. Most of her works are straightforward narratives that often recount a search for place and meaning on the part of female characters who, like the author herself, come to discover that the answers to life’s deepest questions reside principally within the self.