Ann Judith Birstein (May 27, 1927 – May 24, 2017) was an American Fulbright Scholar, novelist, memoirist, essayist, film critic, blogger, and professor. Biography She was born in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City and was the daughter of the notable Rabbi Bernard Birstein of the Actor's Temple. She attended Queens College and published her first novel, Star of Glass, in 1950 at the age of twenty three. She was married to and later divorced the literary critic Alfred Kazin, with whom she had a daughter, Cathrael Kazin. Birstein was also stepmother to professor and author Michael Kazin. She was a former professor of Barnard College. She died at home in New York on May 24, 2017, following a long illness. Novels Star of Glass (1950) The Troublemaker The Sweet Birds of Gorham Summer Situations Dickie's List American Children The Rabbi on Forty-seventh Street (biography of her father, Rabbi Bernard Birstein) The Last of the True Believers What I Saw at the Fair (autobiography) Vanity Fare (2009) References External links Ann Birstein: Biography connected to the Queens College Ann Birstein papers. 1927 births 2017 deaths Jewish American novelists 20th-century American novelists American women novelists Queens College, City University of New York alumni Barnard College faculty American women bloggers American bloggers American memoirists American women memoirists American film critics 21st-century American novelists American women essayists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers American women film critics 20th-century American essayists 21st-century American essayists Novelists from New York (state) 21st-century American Jews