Kazan, Frances 1946–

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Kazan, Frances 1946–

PERSONAL: Born November 18, 1946, in Brighton, England; daughter of Joseph Charles (an accountant) and Rita Doris (a social service worker) Wright; married Peter David Rudge (a manager), April 5, 1969 (divorced); married Elia Kazan (a film director), June 28, 1982; children: (first marriage) Joseph Daniel, Charlotte. Education: Hockerill Teachers College, teaching degree, 1968; attended New York University, 1980–81. Religion: Church of England.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House, 299 Park Ave., New York, NY 10171-0002.

CAREER: Schoolteacher in London, England, 1968–72; writer.

WRITINGS:

Good Night, Little Sister (novel), Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1986.

Halide's Gift (novel), Random House (New York, NY), 2001.

Also contributor to Self.

SIDELIGHTS: The wife of well-known film director Elia Kazan, Frances Kazan is a former school teacher who later turned to writing fiction. Her novel Halide's Gift is set in Constantinople at the beginning of the twentieth century and features a young woman raised in a traditional Muslim home at a time when Western influences are beginning to encroach. The central character, Halide Edib, is the daughter of an administrator for the last Ottoman sultan. Living in a privileged home, she receives a Western-style education from her governess and is later sent to an American school. Despite this educational influence, however, Halide still has strong ties to family tradition, and she possesses an unusual gift, as well: the ability to hear the voices of her ancestors, which she inherited from her grandmother.

As Halide becomes caught between the intellectual and the spiritual, the East and the West, the novel describes the dramatic social changes that occurred in Turkey with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Although a Publishers Weekly critic called this effort by Kazan "old fashioned" and "undistinguished," the reviewer asserted that "its portrayal of an Islamic world on the brink of change is carefully detailed and convincing." Writing in Booklist, Elsa Gaztambide asserted that Halide's Gift is a "uniquely stylized novel with a subject matter that is refreshingly untrodden."

Kazan once told CA, "I travel between New York, the Bahamas, and England, where my family still lives. Living on two continents has, I hope, given my work a broader perspective."