Background
White, Claire Nicolas was born on June 18, 1925 in Groet, The Netherlands. Came to the United States, 1939. Daughter of Joep and Suzanne (Nys) Nicolas.
(Claire White was born in Holland, the daughter of unconve...)
Claire White was born in Holland, the daughter of unconventional, high-spirited parents: Her father was a stained glass artist, her mother a sculptor. Their emotional, artistic, and spiritual experimentation during the 1920s tested the limits of traditional marriage and the understanding of young Claire. Flaring jealousies periodically disrupted the family's idyllic life by the North Sea, even transplanting them several times. In colorful vignettes Claire fits together the fragments of her European childhood and her family's struggle to acclimatize after emigrating to the United States in the 1940s. After the war Claire drives with her mother to California, where they visit her illustrious Aunt Maria, married to Aldous Huxley. When her parents return to Europe, Claire continues to straddle two worlds, torn between past and present. When the author says of an old friend, "Culture, to him, is not a question of sophistication but a kind of love affair," she is also describing the familial atmosphere that nurtures her. This intimate portrait pays tribute to her family and a bygone Europe, a period of brilliant expressionism and "high Gothic sensibility."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0916515524/?tag=2022091-20
(In celebration of Claire’s 88th birthday, the 50th annive...)
In celebration of Claire’s 88th birthday, the 50th anniversary edition of Claire’s first novel, The Death of the Orange Trees, and her latest novella, Ernestine, are being made available for download by NYCreative Publishing. When it was originally published in 1963, LIFE magazine called The Death of the Orange Trees an “American Cherry Orchard.” It is a short novel dealing with two families forced to come to terms with the real life of the present. The Gerrishes are an old New England family keeping up an elegant style of life in Connecticut, too lavish for their means. Symbolizing their obeisance to a bygone time are their orange trees which must be relocated twice a year because of the unsuitable climate. Their only married daughter, Maria, lives with her painter husband, Paul, and their six children in the caretaker’s cottage and the life of her own family is not lived according standards of the Gerrishes. Maria’s problem is one of divided loyalties; she really can’t decide where she belongs—with the family that created her or with the family she created—and this dichotomy carries over into the lives of her children. “I congratulate Claire Nicolas on the successful working-out of an ambitious theme. So many first novels these days are narrow and too personal that it is a relief to find a new author attempting to design on a big canvas” Daphne Du Maurier, from the 1963 edition
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0989913767/?tag=2022091-20
White, Claire Nicolas was born on June 18, 1925 in Groet, The Netherlands. Came to the United States, 1939. Daughter of Joep and Suzanne (Nys) Nicolas.
Baccalaureat, French Lycee, New York City, 1944. Bachelor, Smith College, 1946.
Editor Smithtown Township Art Journal, Smithtown, New York, 1970-1977, Taproot magazine, Long Island, 1978-1984. Assistant editor Whelk's Walk Review, 1998-1999. Translator Poet in Schools, Long Island, 1977-1987, Long Island University, Greenvale, 1996-1998, State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1997.
Teacher writing Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington, New York, since 1985. Administrative, teacher Taproot Workshops, Stony Brook, 1980-1984. Resident Translator's House, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1992.
United States delegate International Poetry Festival, Struga, Macedonia, 1990.
(In celebration of Claire’s 88th birthday, the 50th annive...)
(Claire White was born in Holland, the daughter of unconve...)
Trustee Smithtown Township Arts Council, 1970-1976. Member Poetry Society of America.
Married Robert White, September 12, 1947. Children: Sebastian, Stephanie, Christian.