Эдна Фербер: Жизнь и творчество американской писательницы.

American novelist and playwright (1885–1968)

Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize winning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1930; adapted into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Giant (1952; made into the 1956 film of the same name) and Ice Palace (1958), which also received a film adaptation in 1960. She helped adapt her short story "Old Man Minick", published in 1922, into a play (Minick) and it was thrice adapted to film, in 1925 as the silent film Welcome Home, in 1932 as The Expert, and in 1939 as No Place to Go.

After graduation, Ferber planned to study elocution, with vague thoughts of someday becoming an actor, but her family could not afford to send her to college. On the spur of the moment, she took a job as a cub reporter at the Appleton Daily Crescent and subsequently moved to the Milwaukee Journal. While Ferber was recovering, she began writing and selling short stories to various magazines, and in 1911 she published her first novel, Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed. In 1912, a collection of her short stories was published in a volume entitled Buttered Side Down. In her autobiography, Ferber wrote:
text=In that day, and for a girl in her early twenties, they were rather hard tough stories The book got good reviews. I was startled and grimly pleased when some of the reviewers said that obviously these stories had been written by a man who had taken a feminine nom de plume as a hoax. I have always thought that a writing style should be impossible of sex determination; I don't think the reader should be able to say whether a book has been written by a man or a woman. In 1925, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her book So Big. Ferber initially believed her draft of what would become So Big lacked a plot, glorified failure, and had a subtle theme that could easily be overlooked. When she sent the book to her usual publisher, Doubleday, she was surprised to learn that he greatly enjoyed the novel. This was reflected by the several hundreds of thousands of copies of the novel sold to the public. Following the award, the novel was made into a silent film starring Colleen Moore that same year. A remake followed in 1932, starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent, with Bette Davis in a supporting role. A 1953 version of So Big starring Jane Wyman is the most popular version to modern audiences. at the age of 82. She left her estate to her sister and nieces.

Ferber never married, had no children, and is not known to have engaged in a romance or sexual relationship. In her early novel Dawn O'Hara, the title character's aunt remarks, "Being an old maid was a great deal like death by drowning – a really delightful sensation when you ceased struggling." Ferber did take a maternal interest in the career of her niece Janet Fox, an actress who performed in the original Broadway casts of Ferber's plays Dinner at Eight (1932) and Stage Door (1936). Ferber was known for being outspoken and having a quick wit. On one occasion, she led other Jewish guests in leaving a house party after learning the host was antisemitic. During this time and unlike most Americans, she became troubled by the rise of the Nazi Party and its spreading of the antisemitic prejudice she had faced in her childhood. She commented on this saying, "It was a fearful thing to see a continent – a civilization – crumbling before one's eyes. It was a rapid and seemingly inevitable process to which no one paid any particular attention." Her fears greatly influenced her work, which often featured themes of racial and cultural discrimination. Her 1938 autobiography, A Peculiar Treasure, originally included a spiteful dedication to Adolf Hitler which stated: <blockquote>To Adolf Hitler, who has made me a better Jew and a more understanding human being, as he has of millions of other Jews, this book is dedicated in loathing and contempt.

In a poll carried out by the Saturday Review of Literature, asking American writers which presidential candidate they supported in the 1940 election, Ferber endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, along with a rich and diverse collection of supporting characters. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination, ethnic or otherwise. Ferber's works often concerned small subsets of American culture, and sometimes took place in exotic locations she had visited but was not intimately familiar with, such as Texas or Alaska. She thus helped to highlight the diversity of American culture to those who did not have the opportunity to experience it. Some novels are set in places she had not visited.

Ferber was portrayed by the actress Lili Taylor in the film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). In 2008, The Library of America selected Ferber's article "Miss Ferber Views 'Vultures' at Trial" for inclusion in its two century retrospective of American True Crime. On July 29, 2002, in her hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, the U. S. Postal Service issued an 83¢ Distinguished Americans series postage stamp honoring her. Artist Mark Summers, well known for his scratchboard technique, created this portrait for the stamp referencing a black and white photograph of Ferber taken in 1927. A fictionalized version of Edna Ferber appears briefly as a character in Philipp Meyer's novel The Son (2013). An additional fictionalized version of Edna Ferber, with her as the protagonist, appears in a series of mystery novels by Ed Ifkovic and published by Poisoned Pen Press, including Downtown Strut: An Edna Ferber Mystery, written in 2013. In 2013, Ferber was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. In her hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, the Edna Ferber Elementary School was named after her. Construction of the school was initially voted down in a 1971 referendum.

Ferber wrote thirteen novels, two autobiographies, numerous short stories, and nine plays, many which were written in collaborations with other playwrights.