Joan Didion as a writer launched her career in the 1960s after winning an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine.
Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the ’60s and the Hollywood lifestyle.
Who is Joan Didion?
Joan Didion was born on December 5, 1934, in Sacramento to Frank and Eduene (Jerrett) Didion. She was a fifth-generation Californian descended from settlers who left the ill-fated Donner party in 1846 and took the safer route.
Her father was a finance officer with the Army, her mother a homemaker, and during World War II the family moved from one posting to the next before returning to Sacramento after the war.
What is Joan Didion known for?
The American author is best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos.
A sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work.
Despite her deceptively frail appearance, she maintained the stance of a frontierswoman shaped by the extreme circumstances of her native state.
