This book offers an insightful introduction to the strikingly imaginative range of a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. This fully updated edition of the only book-length study of Jane Smiley serves as a comprehensive survey of the innovative author's literary career in relation to her social, intellectual, and creative convictions. Neil Nakadate's study is organized around close readings of Smiley's major fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel ""A Thousand Acres"". Nakadate also examines her key essays and nonfiction as a means of adding an additional perspective on her novels. The volume's updated biographical material benefits from an unpublished interview conducted with Smiley in 2008, and the citations and extensive bibliography have also been updated, making this new edition an ideal point of entrance for readers eager to understand Smiley's complete body of work.