Marianne Hauser was born in Strasbourg, Alsace, on December 11, 1910. She graduated from the University of Berlin in 1931 and from Sorbonne in 1934. In 1937 Hauser moved to New York City, and she became a U.S. citizen in 1944. She was fluent in French, German, and English. She worked as a literary critic for the Saturday Review of Literature, the New Republic, the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and the Sewanee Review . She also was a columnist for Swiss and French periodicals and newspapers, which allowed her to travel throughout North Africa, India, China, Japan, and Hawaii from 1931-1939. She taught at Queens College in New York City from 1966-1978 and at New York University in 1979.
She wrote several short stories that were published in various magazines, and put together a collection of her short stories titled A Lesson in Music (1964). Hauser also wrote several novels: Monique (1934), Shadow Play in India (1934), Dark Dominion (1947), The Choir Invisible (1958), Prince Ishmael (1963), The Talking Room (1976), The Memoirs of the Late Mr. Ashley (1986), Me and My Mom (1993), and Shootout with Father (1998). Her last book was a children's book dedicated to her granddaughter Nell Charley titled Little Buttercup, the Happiest Bear in the World (2003). The main themes in her fiction concerned shifting realities and turning the familiar strange.
She was married to orchestra conductor Frederic Kirchberger and lived with him in Kirksville, Missouri. They had a son named Michael. The two divorced and Hauser returned to New York City. Affectionately known to her friends as "bear," Hauser kept close relationships even while she traveled throughout the world. She died at age 93, in June 2006.
From the guide to the Marianne Hauser Papers, 1929-2005, (Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida)
