The Writer's Almanac from Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Writer's Almanac from Thursday, April 11, 2013

"Wild" by Stephen Dunn, from What Goes On. © Norton, 2009.

ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013

It's the birthday of Marguerite de Navarre, born in Angoulême, France, in 1492. The daughter of a count and a mother with high aspirations for her children, Marguerite learned Latin, Spanish, Hebrew, and Italian and read philosophy and the Scriptures.

Her younger brother, Francis, became the King of France. He had always looked up to his big sister, and he asked her to join his court to provide counsel and advice. She did, advising her brother on diplomatic affairs and why he should employ Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto Cellini at the royal court, and why he should try to reform the Catholic Church. She tried to mediate the religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, and to protect reformers like John Calvin — even though she didn't agree with him.

It's the birthday of writer Dorothy Allison, born in Greenville, South Carolina (1949) to an unwed 15-year-old who'd dropped out of seventh grade and worked as a waitress. Allison grew up desperately poor, and was sexually abused by her stepfather. But she was inspired by the confidence her teachers and classmates had in her intelligence. 'Because they did not see poverty and hopelessness as a foregone conclusion for my life,' she wrote, 'I could begin to imagine other futures for myself.'

She won a National Merit Scholarship and was the first person in her family to attend college. There, in the late '60s, she was introduced to the Feminist movement, which she said 'was like opening your eyes under water. It hurt, but suddenly everything that had been dark and mysterious became visible and open to change.' She wrote a memoir about her childhood and family history, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure (1995), but it is her earlier novel, Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), that she's best known for.

Allison said, 'People want biography. People want memoir. They want you to tell them that the story you're telling them is true. The thing I'm telling you is true, but it did not always happen to me.'

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