Mona Simpson

Mona Simpson (née Jandali; June 14, 1957) is an American novelist. She has written six novels and studied English at University of California, Berkeley, and languages and literature at Columbia University. She won a Whiting Award for her first novel, Anywhere but Here (1986). It was a popular success and adapted as a film by the same name, released in 1999. She wrote a sequel, The Lost Father (1992). Critical recognition has included the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and making the shortlist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for her novel Off Keck Road (2000). She is the biological younger sister of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. She was born after her parents had married and did not meet Jobs, who was placed for adoption after he was born, until she was 25 years old. Early life Mona Jandali was born June 14, 1957, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to a Swiss-German American mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, and an Syrian Arab father, Abdulfattah "John" (al-)Jandali (Arabic: عبد الفتاح الجندلي). While Jandali and Schieble were still unmarried students at the University of Wisconsin in 1954, Schieble became pregnant and, given her parents' resistance to the relationship, decided to place the baby for adoption. Six months after she placed the baby for adoption, Schieble's father died, and she then wed Jandali and gave birth to Mona. They divorced in 1962. When Schieble remarried, both she and Mona took the name of her new husband, George Simpson. In 1970, after they divorced, Schieble took Mona to Los Angeles and raised her on her own. Simpson described herself as a good student as a child but was also "a clown" and "a smart aleck" who used to make jokes in class. "I did get in trouble a lot when I was older and then I didn't like school so much anymore." She attended Beverly Hills High School and received a scholarship to attend University of California, Berkeley where she studied poetry: "I stuck with poetry as long as I could—as far as my talent would take me." After she finished her B.A. at Berkeley, she worked at a job during the days and worked as a journalist during the nights and on the weekends. She enjoyed journalism and hoped for a position with the Richmond Independent Gazette but did not receive it. She then attended graduate school at Columbia University and received her M.F.A from there. While a student at Columbia University, she was an editor for Paris Review.