Our April/May 2018 Pop Quiz by BUST editor Emily Rems is all about Joan Didion.
Journalist, essayist, novelist, memoirist, playwright, and screenwriter Joan Didion is a literary giant famous for exploring American cultural flux. Think you know what makes this 83-year-old dynamo go, go, go? Then take the quiz!
Joan was born on December 5, 1934, in _______, and she was already writing by age five.
a. Brooklyn, NY
b. Ontario, Canada
c. Sacramento, CA
d. Liverpool, England
Joan wrote her 2005 National Book Award-winning memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, in only __ days.
a. 8
b. 88
c. 98
d. 108
Joan then adapted The Year of Magical Thinking into a Broadway play that premiered in 2007 starring Vanessa Redgrave. The show explored how Joan coped with the death of her ______.
a. husband
b. daughter
c. neither
d. both
The 2017 Netflix documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold, was directed by Joan’s nephew, acclaimed actor/producer/director ________.
a. Griffin Dunne
b. Ron Howard
c. Martin Scorsese
d. Sean Penn
Complete the following Joan quote: “The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which _____ springs.”
a. feminism
b. self-respect
c. inspiration
d. freedom
Anwer: 1. c, 2. b, 3. d, 4. a, 5. b
This article originally appeared in the April/May 2018 print edition of BUST Magazine. Subscribe today!
photo: Julian Wasser/Netflix
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