Often compared to Jane Austen, Pulitzer Prize winner Alison Lurie spent a lifetime writing about intelligent people behaving badly. In The War Between the Tates and Foreign Affairs, novels about faltering marriages, affairs, status, and family entanglements, Lurie’s razor-sharp prose skewered the social codes that shape everyday life.

In her non-fiction works, such as The Language of Clothes and The Language of Houses, Lurie showed how fashion and architecture function as forms of communication — revealing hidden meanings about status, aspiration, rebellion, and belonging. And in her re-telling of fairy tales and stories Lurie offered children and their families new role models of clever and heroic girls.

To mark her centenary, join acclaimed authors Bruce Handy, Joanna Rakoff, and Micah Perks, in conversation with Cody Upton, executive director of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, for a discussion about Alison Lurie’s life and work.