Judith Thurman is the author of "Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller," which won The National Book Award for Non-Fiction, and served as the basis for Sydney Pollack's Oscar-winning film, "Out of Africa;" and "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette," winner of the Los Angeles Times and Salon book awards for biography. She has been writing for The New Yorker since 1987, since 2000 as a Staff Writer, specializing in cultural criticism--essays on literature, art, fashion, and language; and profiles of distinguished women. In 2007, she published "Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire," a collection of her essays from twenty years at the magazine. Her work has been translated into sixteen languages, and she is the recipient of the Harold D Vursell Memorial Award for prose style, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Photo Credit: Brigitte Lacombe