- Original name:
- Kaila Grobsmith
- Born:
- Dec. 5, 1912, Warsaw, Pol.
- Died:
- Feb. 4, 1990, New York, N.Y., U.S. (aged 77)
- Notable Works:
- āBronx Primitiveā
Kate Simon
Kate Simon (born Dec. 5, 1912, Warsaw, Pol.ādied Feb. 4, 1990, New York, N.Y., U.S.) was a memoirist and travel writer whose work was noted for its readability and its wit.
Simonās family immigrated to the United States in 1917 and settled in New York, first in Harlem and then in the Bronx. Simon graduated from Hunter College of the City University of New York with a bachelorās degree in 1935 and later held various editorial positions, including jobs at Publisherās Weekly and The New Republic. Her first book was New York Places and Pleasures, a guidebook published in 1959. She won praise for similar guides to Italy, London, Mexico, and Paris, which combined carefully researched, up-to-date information with little-known facts and were written with elegance and verve.
Simonās three memoirs, Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood (1982), A Wider World: Portraits in an Adolescence (1986), and Etchings in an Hourglass (1990), won acclaim for their unsentimental evocation of her working-class immigrant Jewish family life.
