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Debra Dean

Biography

Debra Dean

Debra Dean was born and raised in Seattle. At Whitman College, she double-majored in English and Drama. After college, she worked in the New York and regional theatre for nearly a decade and met her husband when they were cast as brother and sister in A.R. Gurney’s play The Dining Room. She received her MFA from the University of Oregon and has taught creative writing and literature since 1990. She now lives in Miami where she teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University.

Dean is the author of three books: The Mirrored World (Fall, 2012); Confessions of a Falling Woman, short stories (2008); and her debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad (2006), which has been published in twenty languages and remains a perennial book group favorite.

Debra Dean

Books by Debra Dean

The Mirrored World
by Debra Dean - Historical Fiction

Born in to lower Russian nobility, Xenia is a passionate dreamer who cares little for social conventions. She unexpectedly falls in love with Andrei, a handsome solider with the Imperial choir. Their perfect happiness is constantly overshadowed by the petty demands of life at the royal court and Xenia’s obsession to have a child. However, she is certain that tragedy will strike and when it finally does, Xenia begins giving away her possessions and finally vanishes.

The Madonnas of Leningrad
by Debra Dean - Fiction

Vivid images of the elderly Marina's youth in war-torn Leningrad arise unbidden, carrying her back to the terrible fall of 1941, when she was a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum and the German army began a long, torturous siege on the city. As the people braved starvation and bitter cold, Marina joined other staff members in removing the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping.