Author's Artical: Nancy Fram

Award-winning novelist Nancy Farmer is the author of juvenile novels and picture books that demonstrate her talent as a storyteller and her interest in African culture. The seventeen years Farmer spent in central Africa proved to be critical to her writing career. "The character, viewpoint and zany sense of humor of the people I met there have had a major effect on my writing," she once recounted for Something about the Author (SATA). Indeed, many critics have applauded her work for her characterizations, humor, and depiction of locale. A sure measure of Farmer's success is that The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm and A Girl Named Disaster were both named Newbery Honor books and have been translated into other languages.
Farmer grew up during the 1950s in a small town on the Arizona-Mexico border, where she lived in the hotel her father managed. Although her school friends were not allowed to visit her in the rough neighborhood in which the hotel was located, "life at the hotel was a wonderful preparation for writing," Farmer remembered in the St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers. "I worked at the desk from age nine, renting rooms and listening to the stories the patrons told each other in the lobby." Among the colorful characters at the hotel were cowboys, railroad men, rodeo riders, and circus performers. "My father took me to the American Legion hall on bingo nights, and I heard a lot more stories there," she once told SATA. "People were able to spin tales back then, and they taught me a lot."
Although she was not interested in school and often played hooky, Farmer eventually earned a bachelor of arts degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. In search of adventure, she spent two years in India as a Peace Corps volunteer. Then Farmer traveled for two more years before returning to California, where she studied at Merrit College and the University of California at Berkeley. Again she was seized with the desire to travel, and in 1971 she and a friend sailed to Africa on a freighter. "We planned to sail from port to port, get jobs when we ran out of money, and hopefully meet a lonely Greek shipping tycoon," Farmer remembered. "We arranged passage on a yacht that was actually in the process of being stolen. We didn't know this. The coast guard arrested the 'captain' as he sailed out under the Golden Gate. We were upset, but they probably saved us from being dumped overboard somewhere."
From 1972 to 1988, Farmer worked at a variety of jobs in Mozambique and Zimbabwe (formerly called Rhodesia). While in Zimbabwe, Farmer met her future husband, Harold Farmer, an English professor at the University of Zimbabwe. They married in 1976, and it was when their son was about four years old that Farmer was inspired to start writing. "I had been reading a novel by Margaret Forster and thought: I could do that. Three hours later I emerged with a complete story. The experience was so surprising and pleasant I did it again the next day." In the following four years, Farmer re-fined her craft. She studied works by Roald Dahl, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Stephen King. According to Farmer, it takes a minimum of four years to learn to write. "The horrible truth is that one's first efforts are amateurish," she once commented. "It takes time, practice, and objectivity to correct this problem. I have never understood why people think they can write well without effort. No one expects a first-year medical student to transplant a kidney."
After publishing several novels and a picture book with a Zimbabwean press, Farmer found her writing stalled. For the sake of their son, Daniel, the Farmers decided to move to the United States, and for a time after the move Farmer was still unable to write. Finally, she made her American debut with Do You Know Me?, a novel that is set in Zimbabwe and revolves around Tapiwa and her Uncle Zeka, who moves from the country to the city. Reviewers praised the novel for its characterizations and humor. Remarking on the universal theme, "carefully drawn" characters, and humorous out-
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come, Horn Book contributor Lois F. Anderson asserted that Farmer "manages to deal with serious issues and at the same time provoke laughter." Calling Farmer a "born storyteller," a Publishers Weekly critic applauded her "astute ear for dialogue,… deft hand with plot twists and … keen, dry wit."
Farmer further demonstrated her storytelling talent with the science-fiction tale The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. Although she originally published this young adult novel in Zimbabwe in 1989, she revised it for republication by Orchard in 1994. Taking place in a futuristic Zimbabwean society in the year 2194, the novel follows the adventures of three children of the country's security chief. Because they have always been highly sheltered, the children do not anticipate the dangers they will encounter when they decide to secretly leave their safe compound and venture through the city of Harare. In no time the children are kidnapped by criminals, and soon the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm—three mutant detectives—are on their trail. For this "intriguing, multivalent novel," to quote Anne Deifendeifer in Horn Book, Farmer won kudos from critics. "Farmer is emerging as one of the best and brightest authors for the YA audience," enthused a Publishers Weekly reviewer. As well as judging the author's "impeccable creation of the futuristic society … a remarkable achievement," Deifendeifer praised Farmer for her "fully developed, unique characters" and treatment of futuristic social and political issues. Hazel Rochman, writing in Booklist, predicted that the "thrilling adventures … will grab readers," as will the many "comic, tender characterizations." In 1995, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm was named a Newbery Honor Book.


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