Department of English
Joan Mellen
Joan Mellen is a Professor of English and teaches fiction in the graduate program in Creative Writing, as well as courses in contemporary fiction, Latin American fiction, film studies, and the history of the novel.
Author of fifteen books in total, Mellen just completed a book for the British Film Institute on the Japanese film, Seven Samurai: it will be published in January 2002 by the University of California Press. Her biography of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison will be published by New York University Press on November 22, 2003, the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.
Her last three books were about Latin American literature: a biography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a book about One Hundred Years Of Solitude, and a study of Magic Realism, all published by Gale.
Her most recent biographies were Hellman and Hammett, published in 1996 by HarperCollins, and Kay Boyle: Author Of Herself, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1994.
She has also written numerous articles and reviews. Two of her recent articles dealt with the film adaption of Henry James's The Golden Bowl and books about Louisiana history and politics.
She is currently working as well on a piece about Kay Boyle to be published in a book, Notable American Women, by Harvard University Press.