Rita Dove: Novelist and Poet

Rita Frances Dove was born on August 28, 1952 in Akron, Ohio to African American parents. Her father became one of the first to overcome social racial restrictions when he became a chemical researcher for Goodyear. Dove's mother was a homemaker. At a tender age, Dove was encouraged by her parents, who valued learning and eduation, to develop a great love for reading. Dove practically read whatever she wanted. She eventually went on to be an academic achiever. In1970, she became one of the top 100 American high school graduates for which she became a presidential scholar. Later on, she graduated from the Miami University of Ohio in 1973 with the academic distinction summa cum laude. She went on to study in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar at the Eberhard Karls Universitat Tubingen in 1974 and then received a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. In Iowa she met the German writer Fred Viebahn who eventually became her husband. They have a daughter Aviva. Their family is currently based at Charlottesville, Virginia wher she is an English Commonwealth Prorofessor at the state university.

The Yellow House on the Corner was published in 1980, becoming Dove's first published work. The work presented a collection of poems that revolved around such varied human experiences as romance, adolescence and slavery. Although the work was highly acclaimed, it was another collection of works entitled Thomas and Beulah which eventually garnered for her the great distinction of becoming the second African American poet after Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950 to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. This second collection is Dove's poetic account of the lives of her maternal grandparents and the individual sides of their story as well as their thoughts on each other and life. This work has struck critics as original but maintains the integrity of what was really true. While undeniably elegant and intense in dramatic portrayal, Dove's style is also intensely direct.