Lise Funderburg is a writer and editor based in Philadelphia. She studied at Reed College and Columbia University School of Journalism, and her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Salon, The Nation, and Prevention.

Her newest book is called Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home (Free Press, 2008). Pig Candy could fit into several genres—including narrative nonfiction, memoir, travelogue, and biography—but essentially, it’s a book about life, death, and barbecue.

Lise’s first book was a prescient collection of oral histories, Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk about Race and Identity (Morrow, 1994), the first book to explore the lives of adult children of black-white unions. Black, White, Other has become a core text in the study of American multiracial identity, and it is used in college courses around the world. In the New York Times review of Black, White, Other, writer Kyoko Mori said that the book “is an example of how we can talk about race with feeling, humor, and dignity.”

Lise won a 2003 Nonfiction Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and teaches creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers. She has been a regular contributor since 2001 to O, The Oprah Magazine and has written a book about the Tony-winning musical The Color Purple.

ABOUT PIG CANDY:

Writer Daniel Mendelsohn says, “With Pig Candy, Lise Funderburg has achieved something very remarkable in contemporary memoir: a personal narrative that is crisply intelligent rather than cleverly self-satisfied, deeply and meaningfully emotional rather than soppily sentimental.”

Kirkus Reviews describes Pig Candy as, “Perfectly plotted and well-paced, [a book that] will appeal to a broad range of readers, from fans of Wendell Berry to those of Toni Morrison.”

Essence calls Pig Candy “one of the most hopeful books you’ll read this year.”

And writer Edwidge Danticat describes Pig Candy as “a candid and moving memoir of a daughter’s deep love for her father both when he is most difficult to love and impossible not to.”