Nathan Englander
Encyclopedia
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
born in Long Island, NY in 1970. He wrote the short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a short story collection by Nathan Englander, first published by Knopf in 1999. It has received many positive reviews. It earned Englander a PEN/Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. The collection contains nine stories, many of which...
, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1999. The volume won widespread critical acclaim, earning Englander the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kauffman Prize, and established him as an important writer of fiction.
Education and background
Englander grew up as part of the Orthodox JewishOrthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
community in West Hempstead, New York
West Hempstead, New York
Not to be confused with West Hampstead, London.West Hempstead is a hamlet in Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 18,862 at the 2010 census...
. He attended the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County
Hebrew Academy of Nassau County
Hebrew Academy of Nassau County is a four-year, comprehensive, modern-orthodox, Jewish high school, located in Nassau County, New York.-History:...
for high school, and is an alumnus of the Binghamton University, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
.
Career
Since the publication of For the Relief of Unbearable UrgesFor the Relief of Unbearable Urges
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a short story collection by Nathan Englander, first published by Knopf in 1999. It has received many positive reviews. It earned Englander a PEN/Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. The collection contains nine stories, many of which...
, he has received a number of awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bard Fiction Prize, and a fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Three of his short stories have appeared in editions of The Best American Short Stories. "The Gilgul of Park Avenue" appeared in the 2000 edition, with guest editor E.L. Doctorow; and "How We Avenged the Blums" appeared in the 2006 edition, guest edited by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2002 for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include Run, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, and The Magician's Assistant, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize...
.
Another story in the collection, "The Twenty-Seventh Man", is set to debut as a play in February, 2012.
The Ministry of Special Cases, the long-awaited follow-up to his debut, was released on April 24, 2007. The novel is set in 1976 in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
during Argentina's "Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
" and has been described as "an impeccably paced, historically accurate novel which is alternatively side-splitting and frighteningly macabre." Englander has said of his novel that "...I resisted calling it a political book, in that it wasn’t my intent—that is, I had no corrupting (as I’d see it) preconceived position that I was pushing. There’s a lot of politics in my novel, because it’s central to the world of that novel."
Personal
Englander lives in New York. He teaches fiction as a part of CUNY Hunter CollegeHunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing.
Nathan Englander was a Fall 2009 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow for Fiction at the American Academy in Berlin
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a research and cultural institution in Berlin whose stated mission is to foster a greater understanding and dialogue between the people of the United States and the people of Germany.The American Academy was founded in September 1994 by a group of prominent...
and working on his second novel Coward: A Novel.
External links
- Nathan Englander's page on Knopf's website
- For the Relief of Unbearable Pressure: A Profile of Nathan Englander
- Radio Interview on Bookworm
- Englander's website
Stories online: