Ariel Durant
Ariel Durant (May 10, 1898 – October 25, 1981)[1] was a Russian-born Jewish-American researcher and writer, who was the co-author of The Story of Civilization with her husband Will Durant. They were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
Biography
Ariel Durant was born in Proskurov, Russian Empire (now Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine) as Chaya Kaufman to Jewish parents Ethel Appel Kaufman and Joseph Kaufman. The family emigrated to the United States in 1901. She met her future husband while a student at Ferrer Modern School in New York City. Will was then a teacher at the school, but resigned his post to marry Ariel, who was fifteen at the time of the wedding on October 31, 1913.[2]
Ariel and Will Durant were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 for Rousseau and Revolution, the tenth volume of The Story of Civilization. In 1977 they were presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Gerald Ford, and Ariel was named "Woman of the Year" by the city of Los Angeles.
The Durants wrote a 420-page joint autobiography published by Simon & Schuster in 1978 (A Dual Autobiography; later ISBN 0-671-23078-6).
Ariel Durant and her husband Will died within two weeks of each other in 1981, and are buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
References
External links
- "Will Durant and Ariel Durant" in Encyclopædia Britannica
- Ariel Durant's books on Amazon
- Writer Hero: ARIEL DURANT
- Ariel Durant at Library of Congress Authorities, with 9 catalog records
- Find A Grave
- American historians of philosophy
- American memoirists
- American women writers
- American women historians
- Women memoirists
- 1898 births
- 1981 deaths
- Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
- Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners
- People from Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine
- People from Podolia Governorate
- Ukrainian Jews
- Ukrainian women writers
- American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
- Jewish American historians
- Imperial Russian emigrants to the United States
- Art Students League of New York alumni
- Writers from Los Angeles, California
- Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
- Works by Will Durant
- 20th-century American writers
- 20th-century American historians
- 20th-century women writers
