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Author Bio
Birth—1947
Where—Bronx, New York, USA
Education—B.A., State University of New York, Binghamton
Awards—American Academy of Arts and letters; Book of the
   Year (UK); Le Prix Faubert du Coton (France); Il Premio del
   Mare Circeo (Italy)
Currently—lives in East Hampton, New York


Dava Sobel is an award-winning writer and former New York Times science reporter who has contributed articles to Audobon, Discover, Life, and The New Yorker. She has also been a contributing editor to Harvard magazine, writing about scientific research and the history of science.

Ms. Sobel has maintained an interest in Galileo since childhood and, with Galileo's Daughter, fulfills her ambition to plumb the renaissance scientist's life and times, and to reveal his little-explored relationship with his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste. In researching this book, she traveled to Italy four times and translated original documents, including more than 120 letters from Suor Maria Celeste to her famed father.

Ms. Sobel's previous book, Longitude, became an international bestseller and has been translated into more than twenty foreign languages. It has won several awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award, Book of the Year in England, Le Prix Faubert du Coton in France, and Il Premio del Mare Circeo in Italy. Also, in recognition of Longitude, Ms. Sobel was made a fellow of the American Geographical Society.

In summer 2000, the A&E Network broadcast a four-hour miniseries dramatization of Longitude produced as a joint production of Granada Films and A&E. In 2002 NOVA produced a television documentary, Galileo's Battle for the Heavens, based Soba's Galileo's Daughter.

Ms. Sobel lives in East Hampton, New York. (From Wikipedia.)