| Dinitia Smith | |
| Birth Date: | 26 December 1945 |
| Birth Place: | Cumberland, Maryland, U.S. |
| Other Names: | Dinitia McCarthy |
| Years Active: | 1971–present |
| Children: | 2 |
Dinitia Smith (born December 26, 1945) is an American author and filmmaker.
Smith was born in Cumberland, Maryland, and raised primarily in Great Britain, where her father was a journalist. She came to the United States in 1959, and lived in New York City and Westchester. After graduating from Smith College,[1] she worked as a reporter for the Associated Press in New York.[2] She enrolled in the New York University Film School, and in 1971 obtained a Masters of Fine Arts.
In 1971, she wrote and directed her first film, Passing Quietly Through, under her then-married name McCarthy.[3] That film was one of the first films by a woman to be chosen for the New York Film Festival. Smith continued to make documentaries, including some with American documentary filmmaker, David Grubin,[4] and also wrote several screenplays.[5] Her films have been shown at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.[6]
In 1975, Smith won an Emmy Award for a film she made for WNBC–TV.[7] She published her first novel, The Hard Rain, in 1980. Her second novel, Remember This, won her fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts[8] and the Ingram Merrill Foundation.[9] Her short fiction has been published in numerous literary journals.[10] [11]
Smith was also a contributing editor at New York magazine;[12] from 1995 to 2006 she worked for The New York Times, where she wrote about arts and intellectual trends and ideas.[13] Her third novel, The Illusionist, published in 1997, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.[14]
The Honeymoon, her biographical novel about the 19th century writer George Eliot, was published in 2016. The New York Times wrote that "Smith's enchanting account humanizes a figure renowned as much for her refutation of conventional female stereotypes and social limitations as for her genius for story and language".[15] A reviewer for The Washington Post called the book "the perfect example of when fictional storytelling about an eminent person is warranted".[16]
Smith's fifth novel, The Prince, (Arcade Publishing, 2022) is a contemporary retelling of Henry James's The Golden Bowl. NPR called The Prince "a winner …a compelling story of sexual obsession and the expectations and tolerances of society.”[17] Novelist Lee Child wrote The Prince is “Beautiful, elegant and delicate.”[18] The National Book Review called the novel "deliciously satisfying."[19]
Smith has taught at Columbia University and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.[20]
Smith has been married to historian and author David Nasaw since 1978. It is a second marriage for both.[21] They have two sons.[22] [23]