During a writing career that spanned 57 years, Agatha Christie spellbound her audience with 78 mystery novels, 19 plays, 100 short stories-translated into 44 languages worldwide- as well as three books of poetry, six romance novels, and two non-fiction works. Legions of devoted fans, as well as general readers curious about her life and work, will delight in this richly detailed resource. Agatha Christie A to Z contains over 2,500 entries that cover all aspects of the Christie phenomenon, including relationships with friends, relatives, and associates; all that is publicly known about her strange 10-day disappearance in 1926; chapter-by-chapter plot synopses of all her mystery stories (omitting solutions to the crimes, of course!); and extensive coverage of film, stage, and television adaptations of her works.
DAWN SOVA is a strong opponent of censorship in its many forms and has authored Banned Plays, Forbidden Films, Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds, and Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds. Third editions of the latter two books are in progress. She has felt honored to speak on the topic to both library associations and private groups.
She was born in northern New Jersey in 1949 to first-generation Americans of Eastern European descent whose parents came through Ellis Island with great hopes and dreams for the future. Economic disadvantage limited her parents' access to education, but they empowered their daughter to strive and to earn several advanced academic degrees. She taught writing, journalism, and literature for over two decades at both the high school and university level.
More important, their influence propelled her to dream beyond the boundaries of their working class neighborhood. She is the author of 23 books. In 2002, she won the Mystery Writers of America Award for Best Non-fiction Work for her 20th book Edgar Allan Poe A-to-Z. She was nominated by the MWA in the same category several years earlier for her work on Agatha Christie.
