Patti Smith is a writer, performer and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released twelve albums, including Horses, which has been hailed as one of the top one hundred albums of all time by Rolling Stone. Smith had her first exhibit of drawings at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973 and has been represented by the Robert Miller Gallery since 1978. Her books include Just Kids, winner of the National Book Award in 2010, Witt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, Auguries of Innocence, M Train and Year of the Monkey. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the prestigious title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honour given to an artist by the French Republic. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Smith married Fred Sonic Smith in Detroit in 1980. They had a son, Jackson, and a daughter, Jesse. Smith resides in New York City.
PRAISE FOR PATTI SMITH: Some rock stars shut themselves away from life, but Smith’s engagement with the world only deepens * DAILY TELEGRAPH * Tender, harrowing, often hilarious * VOGUE * So honest and pure as to count as a true rapture -- JOAN DIDION Our St John of the Cross, a mystic full of compassion -- EDMUND WHITE Profoundly beautiful, poetic in its prose and metaphysical in its meaning ... A stunning read * FINANCIAL TIMES * The narrating voice is the voice of Smith's music, twisting between the incantations of a priestess and laconic poetry … There is plenty of wonderful in this small, sly, mystic book * SPECTATOR * A poetic masterpiece -- JOHNNY DEPP Terrifically evocative ... The most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late '60s and '70s that any alumnus has committed to print * NEW YORK TIMES * Sharp, elegiac and finely crafted * SUNDAY TIMES *