1981-1983. A file of eleven letters (9 autograph letters signed, 1 typed letter signed, and 1 autograph postcard, unsigned) written by Mojtabai to her publisher around the time of publication of her book Autumn, which won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award (for a book that "while not a commercial success" was nonetheless a "considerable literary achievement") from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In April, 1981, Mojtabai sends a new address, which is a Travelodge in Amarillo, Texas. The next letter, in July, announces she'll be forwarding a revised carbon draft of Autumn, just in case there's an accident on her return trip to NYC, "and both yours truly and the m.s. [are] demolished in transit." The third letter requests that the Maine aspect of the story not be stressed, as she is going for "universality"; she also gives specific instructions that an advance copy not fall into the hands of one particular prominent author. The fourth letter, to a copy editor, is a long, detailed, and impassioned defense of her writing style (every letter, pause, space and punctuation mark): "These are my decisions. The risks are mine. You have done all your could." The next letter, re-states her case directly to the editor (Nan Talese): "What would the copy editor do with James Joyce -- or even Mark Twain or Riddley Walker??" The next three pieces of correspondence discuss travel plans, the marketing of the book, and still more editing, including a postcard devoted entirely to an apostrophe. Before the book even hits stores, Mojtabai is writing Talese about her vision for the book that will become Blessed Assurance; she also pitches a book deal for Leroy T. Matthiesen, Bishop of Amarillo. There are two retained copies of letters from Talese to Mojtabai; the file concludes with a copy of the letter from the Academy announcing the Rosenthal Foundation Award and a program for the 1983 ceremony. A substantive group of letters by a writer who has written some 20 novels and who was viewed, at this moment in time, as "up and coming": other winners of the Rosenthal Foundation award early in their careers include Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), Marilynne Robinson (Housekeeping), Thomas Berger (Little Big Man), Richard Powers (Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance), John Updike (Rabbit Run), and others who have become mainstays of American literature. The lot is fine. [#036720] $850