Professor Carla Kaplan, Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature and professor of English, African-American, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, won the Goldsmith Award from the Shorenstein Center for her book Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.
Founded in 1991, the Goldsmith Awards encourage more insightful and spirited public debate about government, politics and the press. The Goldsmith Book Prize is awarded to both trade and academic books that best fulfill said objective, improving democratic governance through an examination of the intersection between the media, politics and public policy. Read more about the Goldsmith Book Prize here.
Troublemaker, Kaplan’s biography, tells the story of Jessica Mitford’s extraordinary life, a British-aristocrat turned American-communist. In the second half of the twentieth century, Mitford’s journalism exposed abuse in prisons, hospitals, correspondence schools, prosecutors’ offices, and more. It was Mitford’s unapologetic activism, fierce humor, and trailblazing fearlessness that drew Kaplan to studying her life.
Troublemaker was also a Finalist for both the PEN American and National Book Critics Circle Awards in biography. Read more about the book here.
