Isabel Fonseca
Isabel Fonseca | |
---|---|
Born | 1961 (age 62–63) New York, United States |
Alma mater | Wadham College |
Occupation | Writer |
Notable work |
|
Spouse | |
Children | 2 |
Parent(s) | Gonzalo Fonseca Elizabeth Kaplan |
Relatives | Caio Fonseca (brother) Bruno Fonseca (brother) |
Isabel Fonseca, Lady Amis (born 1961) is an American writer. She is best known for her books Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey and Attachment. She was married to novelist Sir Martin Amis until his death in May 2023.
Early life
Isabel Fonseca was born in New York in 1961 and is the youngest of four children born to Uruguayan sculptor
Her maternal grandfather was Jacob Kaplan, the former owner ofFonseca attended Concord Academy and graduated magna cum laude from
Career
During her time at Wadham College, she began writing for The Times Literary Supplement, where she went on to become an assistant editor. She left the TLS to write Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey, a story of the Roma which she researched while traveling alone through Eastern Europe for four years. She traveled with Gypsies from Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, and Albania.[3] The title comes from a Gypsy proverb, "Bury me standing. I've been on my knees all my life."[5] Bury Me Standing was originally published in 1995 by Alfred A Knopf and translated into 22 languages.[4]
Fonseca has also written for
Between 2003 and 2006, she and her husband, Martin Amis, and two children, Fernanda and Clio, lived in Uruguay where she designed and built their house, in a small fishing village on a windy peninsula in the southern Atlantic. While in Uruguay, she wrote her first novel, Attachment[3] published by Alfred A Knopf and Chatto and Windus in 2009.
Marriage to Martin Amis
Isabel Fonseca met novelist Martin Amis during a phone interview while she was working at The Times Literary Supplement.[6] They began a relationship while Amis was still married to his first wife, Antonia Phillips, an American academic and the mother of his two sons. In 1993, Amis left Phillips for Fonseca, which led to much "finger-wagging" by the British press.[1] The press painted Amis as a second-generation philanderer and Fonseca as a sultry American heiress (because of her being a trustee to the J. M. Kaplan fund).[1] They had two daughters.[7] In 2011, the Amises left London for Brooklyn. In May 2023, Martin Amis died at their house in Lake Worth, Florida.
Notable works
- Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey (1995)
- Bruno Fonseca: The Secret Life of Painting (2000)
- Attachment (2009)
References
- ^ a b c Conti, Samantha. "Scenes From a Marriage". W. Retrieved 2017-12-04.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-12-04.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-12-04.
- ^ a b c "Isabel Fonseca – Penguin Random House". www.penguinrandomhouse.com. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
- ^ "Isabel Fonseca – Charlie Rose". Retrieved 2017-12-04.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-12-04.
- ^ "The Martin Amis Web". www.martinamisweb.com. Retrieved 2017-12-04.