Alison Lurie, professor emerita of English at Cornell University, died on December 3 in Ithaca, New York. She was 94 years old.
Professor Lurie was a native of Chicago and grew up in White Plains, New York. She graduated from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Professor Lurie joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1969, She was only the second woman to be awarded tenure. In 1989 she was named the F.J. Whiton Professor of American Literature. She retired from teaching in 2005.
Professor Lurie was the author of 11 novels, including her first work Love and Friendship, which was published in 1962. Her novel Foreign Affairs won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize and was a National Book Award nominee.
Robert Morgan, the Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell stated that “her novels excel in acute observation of human manners, character, of families, lovers, colleagues. She created unforgettable portraits of our time.”