Dr. Louise A. DeSalvo

September 1942 – October 2018

Louise A. DeSalvo was an American writer, editor, professor, and lecturer who lived in New Jersey. Much of her work focused on Italian-American culture, though she was also a renowned Virginia Woolf scholar.

Dr. Louise DeSalvo taught writing and literature at Hunter College in Manhattan. Her Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work (1989), was named one of the most important books of the 20th century by Women’s Review of Books.

She was a feminist scholar and essayist who also wrote about D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Djuna Barnes, among others. She taught at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey from 1977 to 1982, when she became a professor of English and creative writing at Hunter.

Dr. DeSalvo also published memoirs with arresting titles like Vertigo, Breathless, Chasing Ghosts and Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family, which was named a Book Sense Book of the Year for 2004.

Check out the full New York Times article for the full In Memoriam