Patricia Hampl is the author of the memoirs A Romantic Education, Virgin Time, and most recently The Florist's Daughter, published by Harcourt in 2007. Her meditation on the figure of the odalisque, Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime, published by Harcourt in 2006, was named a New York Times Notable book, as was The Florist's Daughter. She is Regents Professor of English at the University of Minnesota and on the permanent faculty of the Prague Summer Program.