New Directions Publishers
Encyclopedia
New Directions Publishing Corp. is an independent book publishing company that was founded in 1936 by James Laughlin
. The company was incorporated in 1964 as the New Directions Publishing Corporation and operates from New York City, and its books today are distributed by WW Norton & Company
. Its offices are located at 80 8th Avenue. It publishes about 30 books annually.
's advice to the young James Laughlin, then a Harvard University
sophomore, to "do something' useful" after finishing his studies at Harvard. Laughlin's response was to found a press committed to publishing experimental writing. Initially, this ambition to act as a venue for innovative work manifested itself in roughly annual anthologies of new writing, each titled "New Directions in Poetry and Prose" (with either a year or a volume number after it, e.g., "New Directions in Poetry and Prose 1941" or "New Directions in Poetry and Prose 11"). Writers whose early work was published in these anthologies include Dylan Thomas
, Marianne Moore
, Wallace Stevens
, Thomas Merton
, Denise Levertov
, James Agee
, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
. The New Directions "annuals," soon broadened their focus to include quality contemporary writing of all genres, though the work included tended to represent a more intellectual side of American writing as well as a considerable amount of literature in translation from modernist authors around the world. New Directions also published many now-famous writers, including Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, when they had a hard time finding homes for their work, and Tennessee Williams
was published as a poet for the very first time in a New Directions poetry collection.
James Laughlin also initiated the publication of a number of thematic "series," in some cases offering subscriptions to the series in a manner similar to that of magazine publishers. The New Directions "Poet of the Month" series consisted of thin volumes of either lengthy individual poems or small collections of poems by one author were released on a monthly basis, and a larger "Poet of the Year" volume was issued once annually. Each volume was published by a different small press and released by New Directions. The Series was discontinued after a few years.
The publication "Directions" began in 1941 as a quarterly soft-bound journal, with each edition dedicated to a single author or work in prose. Early issues included a collection of short stories by Vladimir Nabokov
and a play by William Carlos Williams
. The subscription model did not take hold, and later editions in the series were published in more traditional form and sold as individual works, not just to subscribers. Another short-lived New Directions periodical, Pharos, was discontinued after its fourth number was published in the winter of 1947.
Other notable undertakings include the "New Classics" and "Modern Readers" series, which reissued recent books that had gone out of print but that New Directions believed deserved to become classics. These reprints included such works as Exiles
and Stephen Hero
by James Joyce
and, most famously, The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
. The New Classics series became, along with the Annuals, one of the signature series of New Directions and helped to build the reputation of a number of works that are now considered "classics." The "Makers of Modern Literature" series published criticism and literary histories of major figures in or influences on modern literature.
In 1977, New Directions was presented with a Carey Thomas Award special citation for distinguished publishing in experimental literature. New Directions' authors have won numerous national and international awards, including the Nobel Prize
, the Pulitzer Prize
, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature
(Octavio Paz, Kamau Brathwaite), and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.
(Nathaniel West's Miss Lonelyhearts
and The Day of the Locust
), William Gibson
(Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths
), Susan Sontag
(Leonid Tsypkin
's Summer in Baden-Baden
), Edwidge Danticat (René Philoctète's Massacre River), Sue Monk Kidd
(Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation), John Ashbery
(Alvin Levin's Love is Like Park Avenue), Devendra Banhart
(Kenneth Patchen's We Meet), Will Self
(Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi
), and Jeanette Winterson
(Djuna Barnes's Nightwood
). Drawing from the tradition of the early anthologies and series, New Directions recently launched the Pearl series, which presents short works by New Directions writers in slim, minimalist volumes designed by Rodrigo Corral
. Recent additions to the series include On Booze by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Leviathan by Joseph Roth. New Directions also publishes a selection of academic reading guides to accompany a number of their books, including Herman Hesse's Siddhartha
and The Night of the Iguana
by Tennessee Williams.
In February 2009, New Directions made headlines when their poet Allen Grossman won the Bollingen Prize in American Poetry, a prize that recognizes either the most outstanding volume of poetry published in the last two years or a lifetime of distinguished achievement in the field. Two years later, the Prize was again won by a New Directions poet, Susan Howe
. Takashi Hiraide's For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut, which was translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu and published by New Directions, was honored by Melville House and Three Percent as the best work of poetry in translation published in 2008. In August 2009, the Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku
was awarded the Vilenice Kristal prize for world poetry, and in 2011, three New Directions books were shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award
: "The Literary Conference" by César Aira, Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, and Child of Nature by Luljeta Lleshanaku.
, Jorge Luis Borges
, and Henry Miller
. Today, their authors include:
American literature
Central American, South American, and Caribbean Literature
British, Canadian, and Australian Literature
European Literature
Chinese and Japanese Literature
Middle Eastern and Indian Literature
, who designed modernist abstract book jackets. Lustig was ultimately responsible for developing a distinctive style of dust jacket that served as a New Directions hallmark for many years.
The company's colophon is a figure of a centaur based upon a sculpture by Heinz Henghes, and usually appears on the spine of New Directions books.
James Laughlin
James Laughlin was an American poet and literary book publisher who founded New Directions Publishers.- Biography :He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Hughart and Marjory Rea Laughlin...
. The company was incorporated in 1964 as the New Directions Publishing Corporation and operates from New York City, and its books today are distributed by WW Norton & Company
W. W. Norton
W. W. Norton & Company is an independent American book publishing company based in New York City. It is well known for its "Norton Anthologies", particularly the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the "Norton Critical Editions" series of texts which are frequently assigned in university...
. Its offices are located at 80 8th Avenue. It publishes about 30 books annually.
New Directions History
New Directions was born in 1936 of Ezra PoundEzra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
's advice to the young James Laughlin, then a Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
sophomore, to "do something' useful" after finishing his studies at Harvard. Laughlin's response was to found a press committed to publishing experimental writing. Initially, this ambition to act as a venue for innovative work manifested itself in roughly annual anthologies of new writing, each titled "New Directions in Poetry and Prose" (with either a year or a volume number after it, e.g., "New Directions in Poetry and Prose 1941" or "New Directions in Poetry and Prose 11"). Writers whose early work was published in these anthologies include Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
, Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
, Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
, Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
, Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
-Early life and influences:Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex.Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, p74 Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, came from a small mining village in North Wales...
, James Agee
James Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
. The New Directions "annuals," soon broadened their focus to include quality contemporary writing of all genres, though the work included tended to represent a more intellectual side of American writing as well as a considerable amount of literature in translation from modernist authors around the world. New Directions also published many now-famous writers, including Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, when they had a hard time finding homes for their work, and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
was published as a poet for the very first time in a New Directions poetry collection.
James Laughlin also initiated the publication of a number of thematic "series," in some cases offering subscriptions to the series in a manner similar to that of magazine publishers. The New Directions "Poet of the Month" series consisted of thin volumes of either lengthy individual poems or small collections of poems by one author were released on a monthly basis, and a larger "Poet of the Year" volume was issued once annually. Each volume was published by a different small press and released by New Directions. The Series was discontinued after a few years.
The publication "Directions" began in 1941 as a quarterly soft-bound journal, with each edition dedicated to a single author or work in prose. Early issues included a collection of short stories by Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
and a play by William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
. The subscription model did not take hold, and later editions in the series were published in more traditional form and sold as individual works, not just to subscribers. Another short-lived New Directions periodical, Pharos, was discontinued after its fourth number was published in the winter of 1947.
Other notable undertakings include the "New Classics" and "Modern Readers" series, which reissued recent books that had gone out of print but that New Directions believed deserved to become classics. These reprints included such works as Exiles
Exiles (play)
Exiles is a play by James Joyce, who is principally remembered for his novels. It draws on the story of "The Dead", the final short story in Joyce's first major work, Dubliners, and was rejected by W. B. Yeats for production by the Abbey Theatre...
and Stephen Hero
Stephen Hero
Stephen Hero is a posthumously-published autobiographical novel by Irish author James Joyce. Its published form reflects only a portion of an original manuscript, part of which was lost. Many of its ideas were used in composing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.-External links:*...
by James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and, most famously, The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
. The New Classics series became, along with the Annuals, one of the signature series of New Directions and helped to build the reputation of a number of works that are now considered "classics." The "Makers of Modern Literature" series published criticism and literary histories of major figures in or influences on modern literature.
In 1977, New Directions was presented with a Carey Thomas Award special citation for distinguished publishing in experimental literature. New Directions' authors have won numerous national and international awards, including the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature
Neustadt International Prize for Literature
The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award for literature sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and its international literary publication, World Literature Today. It is widely considered to be the most prestigious international literary prize after the Nobel Prize in...
(Octavio Paz, Kamau Brathwaite), and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.
New Projects and Awards
The current focus of New Directions is threefold: discovering and acquiring many new contemporary international writers and introducing them to the US (among these are: W. G. Sebald, Roberto Bolaño, Javier Marías, César Aira, Inger Christensen, László Krasznahorkai, and Yoko Tawada); maintaining a tradition of publishing new and experimental American poetry and prose (recent poets include the National Book Award-winner for poetry Nathaniel Mackey, Forrest Gander, Eliot Weinberger, Michael Palmer, Susan Howe, Thalia Field, Peter Cole, and Will Alexander); and reissuing New Directions' classic titles in new editions with introductions by highly praised writers and artists, including: Jonathan LethemJonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
(Nathaniel West's Miss Lonelyhearts
Miss Lonelyhearts
Miss Lonelyhearts, published in 1933, is Nathanael West's second novel. It is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression.-Plot summary:...
and The Day of the Locust
The Day of the Locust
The Day of the Locust is a 1939 novel by American author Nathanael West, set in Hollywood, California during the Great Depression, its overarching themes deal with the alienation and desperation of a broad group of odd individuals who exist at the fringes of the Hollywood movie industry.In 1998,...
), William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
(Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths
Labyrinths
Labyrinths is an English-language collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges.It includes "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", and "The Library of Babel", three of Borges' most famous stories. Many of the stories are from the collections Ficciones and El...
), Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
(Leonid Tsypkin
Leonid Tsypkin
Leonid Borisovich Tsypkin was a Soviet writer and medical doctor, best known for his book Summer in Baden-Baden.-Early life:...
's Summer in Baden-Baden
Summer in Baden-Baden
Summer in Baden-Baden is a book by a Soviet Jewish writer Leonid Tsypkin. It was written in the period from 1977 to 1981, but published in 2001 nearly 20 years after his death.-External links:*...
), Edwidge Danticat (René Philoctète's Massacre River), Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd is a writer from the Southern United States, best known for her novel, The Secret Life of Bees.- Biography :Kidd, who was born in Sylvester, Georgia, graduated from Texas Christian University with a B.S...
(Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation), John Ashbery
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
(Alvin Levin's Love is Like Park Avenue), Devendra Banhart
Devendra Banhart
Devendra Obi Banhart is a singer-songwriter and visual artist. Banhart was born in Houston, Texas and was raised by his mother in Venezuela, until he moved to California as a teenager. He began to study at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998, but dropped out to perform music in Europe, San...
(Kenneth Patchen's We Meet), Will Self
Will Self
William Woodard "Will" Self is an English novelist and short story writer. His fictional style is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical. He is a prolific commentator on contemporary British life, with regular appearances on Newsnight and Question Time...
(Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi
The Colossus of Maroussi
The Colossus of Maroussi is an impressionist travelogue by Henry Miller, written in 1939 and first published in 1941 by Colt Press of San Francisco. As an impoverished writer in need of rejuvenation, Miller travelled to Greece at the invitation of his friend, the writer Lawrence Durrell. The text...
), and Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson OBE is a British novelist.-Early years:Winterson was born in Manchester and adopted on 21 January 1960. She was raised in Accrington, Lancashire, by Constance and John William Winterson...
(Djuna Barnes's Nightwood
Nightwood
Nightwood is a 1936 novel by Djuna Barnes first published in London by Faber and Faber. An edition published in the United States in 1937 by Harcourt, Brace included an introduction by T. S. Eliot.....
). Drawing from the tradition of the early anthologies and series, New Directions recently launched the Pearl series, which presents short works by New Directions writers in slim, minimalist volumes designed by Rodrigo Corral
Rodrigo Corral
Rodrigo Corral runs the Rodrigo Corral Studio and is the creative director at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He has designed covers for the Pulitzer Prize winning author Junot Díaz and the bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk among many others. He also designed the New York Times bestselling books...
. Recent additions to the series include On Booze by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Leviathan by Joseph Roth. New Directions also publishes a selection of academic reading guides to accompany a number of their books, including Herman Hesse's Siddhartha
Siddhartha (novel)
Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of an Indian man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha.The book, Hesse's ninth novel , was written in German, in a simple, powerful, and lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential...
and The Night of the Iguana
The Night of the Iguana
The Night of the Iguana is a stageplay written by American author Tennessee Williams, based on his 1948 short story. The play premiered on Broadway in 1961. Two film adaptations have been made, including the Academy Award-winning 1964 film of the same name....
by Tennessee Williams.
In February 2009, New Directions made headlines when their poet Allen Grossman won the Bollingen Prize in American Poetry, a prize that recognizes either the most outstanding volume of poetry published in the last two years or a lifetime of distinguished achievement in the field. Two years later, the Prize was again won by a New Directions poet, Susan Howe
Susan Howe
Susan Howe is a American poet, scholar, essayist and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among others poetry movements. Her work is often classified as Postmodern because it expands traditional notions of genre...
. Takashi Hiraide's For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut, which was translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu and published by New Directions, was honored by Melville House and Three Percent as the best work of poetry in translation published in 2008. In August 2009, the Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku
Luljeta Lleshanaku
Luljeta Lleshanaku is an Albanian poet who is the recipient of the 2009 Vilenice Kristal prize for world poetry She was educated in literature at the University of Tirana and was editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Zëri i rinisë...
was awarded the Vilenice Kristal prize for world poetry, and in 2011, three New Directions books were shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award
Best Translated Book Award
Best Translated Book Award is an annual literature award given by Three Percent, the online literature magazine of Open Letter Books, which is the book translation press of the University of Rochester. It is awarded to the best original translation published that year. A long list and short list...
: "The Literary Conference" by César Aira, Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, and Child of Nature by Luljeta Lleshanaku.
New Directions authors
New Directions was the first American publisher of such notables as Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
, and Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
. Today, their authors include:
American literature
- Walter AbishWalter AbishWalter Abish is an Austrian-American author of experimental novels and short stories.-Biography:Abish was born in Vienna, Austria to Adolph and Frieda . At a young age, his family fled from the Nazis, traveling first to Italy and Nice before settling in Shanghai from 1940 to 1949...
- Will AlexanderWill Alexander (poet)Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and visual artist. He was the recipient of a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry in 2001 and a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2002...
- Sherwood AndersonSherwood AndersonSherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...
- Paul AusterPaul AusterPaul Benjamin Auster is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy , Moon Palace , The Music of Chance , The Book of Illusions and The Brooklyn Follies...
- Jimmy Santiago BacaJimmy Santiago BacaJimmy Santiago Baca of Apache and Chicano descent is an American poet and writer.- Life and career :...
- Djuna BarnesDjuna BarnesDjuna Barnes was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and '30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens...
- Kay BoyleKay BoyleKay Boyle was an American writer, educator, and political activist.- Early years :The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio...
- William BronkWilliam BronkWilliam Bronk was an American poet. He won the National Book Award in 1982.-Life and work:William Bronk was born in a house on Lower Main Street in Fort Edward, New York. He had an older brother Sherman who died young and two older sisters, Jane and Betty...
- Frederick BuschFrederick BuschFrederick Busch was an American writer. Busch was a master of the short story and one of America’s most prolific writers of fiction long and short....
- Hayden CarruthHayden CarruthHayden Carruth was an American poet and literary critic. He taught at Syracuse University.-Life:Hayden Carruth grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut, and was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the University of Chicago. He lived in Johnson, Vermont for many years...
- Hua Chuang
- Cid CormanCid CormanCid Corman was an American poet, translator and editor, most notably of Origin, who was a key figure in the history of American poetry in the second half of the 20th century.-Early life and writing:...
- Gregory CorsoGregory CorsoGregory Nunzio Corso was an American poet, youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers...
- Robert CreeleyRobert CreeleyRobert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
- H.D.H.D.H.D. was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington...
- Guy DavenportGuy DavenportGuy Mattison Davenport was an American writer, translator, illustrator, painter, intellectual, and teacher.-Life:...
- Robert DuncanRobert Duncan (poet)Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...
- Lawrence FerlinghettiLawrence FerlinghettiLawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
- Thalia FieldThalia FieldThalia Field is an American writer and editor known for interdisciplinary multimedia collaborations. She teaches experimental fiction and performance at Brown University. She has published three books of experimental writing and prose poetry with New Directions Publishing, most recently Bird...
- Forrest GanderForrest GanderForrest Gander is an American poet, essayist, novelist, critic, and translator.Born in the Mojave Desert, he was raised in Virginia where he attended The College of William and Mary, majoring in geology, a subject referenced frequently in both his poems and essays. He received an M.A...
- John Gardner
- Allen GrossmanAllen GrossmanAllen Grossman is a noted American poet, critic and professor.-Biography:Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1932, Grossman was educated at Harvard University, graduating with an MA in 1956 after several interruptions. He went on to receive a PhD from Brandeis University in 1960, where he remained a...
- John Hawkes
- David HintonDavid Hinton-Life:He studied Chinese at Cornell University, and in Taiwan. He lives in East Calais, Vermont.-Awards:* 1997 Academy of American Poets Harold Morton Landon Translation Award* fellowship from the Witter Bynner Foundation...
- Susan HoweSusan HoweSusan Howe is a American poet, scholar, essayist and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among others poetry movements. Her work is often classified as Postmodern because it expands traditional notions of genre...
- Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
- Robinson JeffersRobinson JeffersJohn Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Most of Jeffers' poetry was written in classic narrative and epic form, but today he is also known for his short verse, and considered an icon of the environmental movement.-Life:Jeffers was born in...
- Mary KarrMary KarrMary Karr is an American poet, essayist and memoirist. She rose to fame in 1995 with the publication of her bestselling memoir The Liars' Club...
- Bob KaufmanBob KaufmanBob Kaufman , born Robert Garnell Kaufman, was an American Beat poet and surrealist inspired by jazz music. In France, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "American Rimbaud."-Biography:...
- Alvin LevinAlvin LevinAlvin Levin was an American Jewish writer from Paterson, New Jersey who grew up in the Bronx.He is best known for the celebrated unfinished novel, Love is Like Park Avenue, that he began writing in 1936. In 1943 Levin stopped writing entirely, entering a period of silence that ended with his death...
- Denise LevertovDenise Levertov-Early life and influences:Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex.Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, p74 Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, came from a small mining village in North Wales...
- Nathaniel MackeyNathaniel MackeyNathaniel Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic, editor and Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Mackey is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teaching a poetry workshop at Duke University....
- Bernadette MayerBernadette MayerBernadette Mayer is a poet and prose writer. In 1967 she received a BA from New School for Social Research. She has since edited the journal 0 TO 9 with Vito Acconci and the United Artists Press with Lewis Warsh...
- Carole MasoCarole MasoCarole Maso is a contemporary American novelist and essayist, known for her experimental, poetic and fragmentary narratives often called postmodern. She received a B.A. in English from Vassar College in 1977. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, an NEA fellowship, and...
- Michael McClureMichael McClureMichael McClure is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums...
- Thomas MertonThomas MertonThomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
- Joyce Carol OatesJoyce Carol OatesJoyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
- Charles OlsonCharles OlsonCharles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...
- Toby OlsonToby Olson-Life:Through high school and his four years in the Navy as a surgical technician, he lived in California, Arizona, and Texas.He graduated from Occidental College and Long Island University....
- George OppenGeorge OppenGeorge Oppen was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism, and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee...
- Michael PalmerMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is an American poet and translator. He attended Harvard University where he earned a BA in French and a MA in Comparative Literature. He has worked extensively with Contemporary dance for over thirty years and has collaborated with many composers and visual artists...
- Kenneth PatchenKenneth PatchenKenneth Patchen was an American poet and novelist. Though he denied any direct connection, Patchen's work and ideas regarding the role of artists paralleled those of the Dadaists, the Beats, and Surrealists...
- Ezra PoundEzra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
- Kenneth RexrothKenneth RexrothKenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...
- William SaroyanWilliam SaroyanWilliam Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
- Delmore SchwartzDelmore SchwartzDelmore Schwartz was an American poet and short story writer from Brooklyn, New York.-Biography:Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when Schwartz was nine, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. Later, in 1930,...
- Frederic TutenFrederic TutenFrederic Tuten is an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He has written five novels – The Adventures of Mao on the Long March , Tallien: A Brief Romance , Tintin in the New World: A Romance , Van Gogh's Bad Café and The Green Hour – as well as one book of inter-related short...
- Rosmarie WaldropRosmarie WaldropRosmarie Waldrop is a contemporary American poet, translator and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958. She has lived in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s...
- Robert Penn WarrenRobert Penn WarrenRobert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
- Eliot WeinbergerEliot WeinbergerEliot Weinberger is a contemporary American writer, essayist, editor, and translator. His work regularly appears in translation and has been published in some thirty languages...
- Nathanael WestNathanael WestNathanael West was a US author, screenwriter and satirist.- Early life :...
- Tennessee WilliamsTennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
- William Carlos WilliamsWilliam Carlos WilliamsWilliam Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
- Louis ZukofskyLouis ZukofskyLouis Zukofsky was an American poet. He was one of the founders and the primary theorist of the Objectivist group of poets and thus an important influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad.-Life:...
Central American, South American, and Caribbean Literature
- César AiraCésar AiraCésar Aira is an Argentine writer and translator, and an exponent of Argentine contemporary literature. He has published over fifty books of stories, novels and essays...
(Argentina) - Homero AridjisHomero AridjisHomero Aridjis is a Mexican poet, novelist, environmental activist, journalist and diplomat known for his independence.-Family and Early Life:...
(Mexico) - Roberto BolañoRoberto BolañoRoberto Bolaño Ávalos was a Chilean novelist and poet. In 1999 he won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los detectives salvajes , and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, which was described by board member Marcela Valdes...
(Chile) - Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis BorgesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
(Argentina) - Kamau Brathwaite (Caribbean)
- Coral BrachoCoral BrachoCoral Bracho is a Mexican poet, translator, and doctor of Literature.Bracho is winner of the Aguacalientes National Poetry Prize in 1981 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000...
(México) - Adolfo Bioy CasaresAdolfo Bioy CasaresAdolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.-Biography:Adolfo Bioy...
(Argentina) - Horacio Castellanos MoyaHoracio Castellanos Moya-Life and work:Castellanos Moya was born in 1957 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. His family moved to El Salvador while he was only a few years old. He lived in San Salvador until 1979, and since has resided in Toronto, San José, Mexico City and Frankfurt. He has also worked as a journalist.Castellanos...
(El Salvador) - Julio CortázarJulio CortázarJulio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...
(Argentina) - Felisberto HernándezFelisberto HernándezFelisberto Hernandez was an Uruguayan writer.-Background:Hernández was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. His father was from Tenerife...
(Uruguay)
- Vicente HuidobroVicente HuidobroVicente García-Huidobro Fernández was a Chilean poet born to an aristocratic family. He was an exponent of the artistic movement called Creacionismo , which held that a poet should bring life to the things he or she writes about, rather than just describe them.Huidobro was born into a wealthy...
(Chile) - Enrique LihnEnrique LihnEnrique Lihn Carrasco was a Chilean poet, playwright, and novelist. The son of Enrique Lihn Doll and María Carrasco Délano, he married Ivette Mingram and they had one daughter: Andrea María Lihn Mingram, an actress.Born in 1929 at Santiago, Chile, Lihn aspired to be a painter but after a failed...
(Chile) - Clarice LispectorClarice LispectorClarice Lispector was a Brazilian writer. Acclaimed internationally for her innovative novels and short stories, she was also a journalist...
(Brazil) - Pablo NerudaPablo NerudaPablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....
(Chile) - Nicanor ParraNicanor ParraNicanor Parra Sandoval is a mathematician and poet born in San Fabián de Alico, Chile, who has been considered to be a popular poet in Chile with enormous influence and popularity in Latin America, and also considered one of the most important poets of the Spanish language literature...
(Chile)
- Octavio PazOctavio PazOctavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
(Mexico) - René PhiloctèteRené PhiloctèteRené Philoctète is a Haitian poet. Born in Jérémie, some of his most notable poems are Saison des hommes , which was also his first published poem, Les Tambours du Soleil , and Ces Iles qui Marchent ....
(Haiti) - Rodrigo Rey RosaRodrigo Rey RosaRodrigo Rey Rosa is a Guatemalan writer.-Professional life:Not a lot is known about Rey Rosa's professional life until after he emigrated to New York after finishing his studies in Guatemala. Rey Rosa has based many of his writings and stories on legends and myths that are indigenous to Latin...
(Guatemala) - Guillermo RosalesGuillermo RosalesGuillermo Rosales was a Cuban novelist. A double exile, writing in reaction both to Cuba's totalitarian regime and to the indifference of Cuban-American exiles bent on achieving the American Dream, Rosales created some of the best Cuban literature of the second half of the twentieth century,...
(Cuba) - Evelio RoseroEvelio RoseroEvelio Rosero Diago was born in Bogotá, Colombia, on March 20, 1958. He is a Colombian writer and journalist, who reached international acclaim after winning in 2006 the prestigious Tusquets Prize....
(Columbia) - Luís Fernando VeríssimoLuis Fernando VerissimoLuís Fernando Veríssimo is a Brazilian writer.Verissimo is the son of Brazilian writer Erico Verissimo and lived with his father in the United States during his childhood....
(Brazil)
British, Canadian, and Australian Literature
- H. E. BatesH. E. BatesHerbert Ernest Bates, CBE , better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer and author. His best-known works include Love for Lydia, The Darling Buds of May, and My Uncle Silas.-Early life:...
- Sir Thomas Browne
- Basil BuntingBasil BuntingBasil Cheesman Bunting was a significant British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of Briggflatts in 1966. He had a lifelong interest in music that led him to emphasise the sonic qualities of poetry, particularly the importance of reading poetry aloud...
- Elias CanettiElias CanettiElias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
- Anne CarsonAnne CarsonAnne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University from 1980-1987....
- Christopher IsherwoodChristopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
- James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
- B. S. JohnsonB. S. JohnsonB. S. Johnson was an English experimental novelist, poet, literary critic, producer of television programmes and film-maker.-Biography:...
- D. H. LawrenceD. H. LawrenceDavid Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
- Donald MacAulay
- Hugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
- Wilfred OwenWilfred OwenWilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
- Caradog PrichardCaradog PrichardCaradog Prichard was a Welsh poet and novelist writing in Welsh. His daughter, Mari Prichard, was married to the late Humphrey Carpenter....
- Herbert ReadHerbert ReadSir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
- Peter Dale ScottPeter Dale ScottPeter Dale Scott is a Canadian born, former English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a former diplomat and a poet....
- C. H. SissonC. H. SissonCharles Hubert Sisson CH was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator.-Life:...
- Stevie SmithStevie SmithFlorence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith was an English poet and novelist.-Life:Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith. Contemporary Women Poets...
- Muriel SparkMuriel SparkDame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...
- Dylan ThomasDylan ThomasDylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
- Charles TomlinsonCharles TomlinsonAlfred Charles Tomlinson, CBE is a British poet and translator, and also an academic and artist. He was born and raised in Penkhull in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.-Life:...
European Literature
- Germano AlmeidaGermano AlmeidaGermano Almeida is a Cape Verde author and lawyer. Born on the Cape island Boa Vista, Almeida studied law in Lisbon and currently practices in Mindelo. His novels have been translated into several languages...
(Cape Verde) - Alfred AnderschAlfred AnderschAlfred Hellmuth Andersch was a German writer, publisher, and radio editor. The son of a conservative East Prussian army officer, he was born in Munich, Germany and died in Berzona, Ticino, Switzerland...
(Germany) - Guillaume ApollinaireGuillaume ApollinaireWilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
(France) - Jacques BarzunJacques BarzunJacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
(France) - Gottfried BennGottfried BennGottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist, and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution...
(Germany) - Johannes BobrowskiJohannes BobrowskiJohannes Bobrowski was a German lyric poet, narrative writer, adaptor and essayist.-Life:Bobrowski was born in Tilsit in East Prussia. In 1925, he moved first to Rastenburg, then in 1928 on to Königsberg, where he attended the humanist Gymnasium. One of his teachers was Ernst Wiechert. In 1937, he...
(Germany) - Roberto BolañoRoberto BolañoRoberto Bolaño Ávalos was a Chilean novelist and poet. In 1999 he won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los detectives salvajes , and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, which was described by board member Marcela Valdes...
(Spain) - Mikhail BulgakovMikhail BulgakovMikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...
(Russia) - Louis-Ferdinand CélineLouis-Ferdinand CélineLouis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of French writer and physician Louis-Ferdinand Destouches . Céline was chosen after his grandmother's first name. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and...
(France) - René CharRené CharRené Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
(France) - Inger ChristensenInger ChristensenInger Christensen was a Danish poet, novelist, essayist and editor considered the foremost Danish poetic experimentalist of her generation.-Life and work:...
(Denmark) - Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
(France) - Tibor DeryTibor DeryTibor Déry was a Hungarian writer. In his early years he was a supporter of communism, but after being excluded from the ranks of the Hungarian Communist Party in 1953 he started writing satire on the communist regime in Hungary.Georg Lukács praised Dery as being 'the greatest depicter of human...
(Hungary) - Eugénio de AndradeEugénio de AndradeEugénio de Andrade was the pseudonym of José Fontinhas, GOSE, GCM , a Portuguese poet.José Fontinhas was born at Póvoa de Atalaia, Fundão. He is revered as one of the leading names in contemporary Portuguese poetry...
(Portugal)
- Honoré de BalzacHonoré de BalzacHonoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
(French) - Eça de Queiroz (Portugal)
- Jenny ErpenbeckJenny Erpenbeck-Life:Jenny Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. Her grandparents are the authors Fritz Erpenbeck and Hedda Zinner. In Berlin she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985...
(Germany) - Gustave FlaubertGustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
(France) - Romain GaryRomain GaryRomain Gary was a French diplomat, novelist, film director, World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice .- Early life :Gary was born in Vilnius under the name Roman Kacew...
(France) - Goethe (Germany)
- Lars GustafssonLars GustafssonLars Gustafsson is a Swedish, poet, novelist and scholar. He was born in Västerås, completed his secondary education at the Västerås gymnasium and continued to Uppsala University; he received his Licentiate degree in 1960 and was awarded his Ph.D. in Theoretical Philosophy in 1978. He lived in...
(Sweden) - Knut HamsunKnut HamsunKnut Hamsun was a Norwegian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. He was praised by King Haakon VII of Norway as Norway's soul....
(Norway) - Hermann HesseHermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
(Germany) - Alfred JarryAlfred JarryAlfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....
(France) - Franz KafkaFranz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
(Germany/Czech Republic) - Heinrich von KleistHeinrich von KleistBernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.- Life :...
(Germany) - Alexander KlugeAlexander KlugeAlexander Kluge is an author and film director.-Early life, education and early career:Kluge was born in Halberstadt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....
(Germany) - László KrasznahorkaiLászló KrasznahorkaiLászló Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian writer. He completed his university studies in Hungary, and has supported himself as an independent author since then...
(Hungary) - Dezső KosztolányiDezso Kosztolányi-Biography:Kosztolányi was born in Szabadka, Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1885, the town belongs today to Serbia. The city serves as a model for the fictional town of Sárszeg, in which he set his novella Skylark as well as The Golden Kite....
(Hungary)
- Rüdiger Kremer (Germany)
- Siegfried LenzSiegfried LenzSiegfried Lenz is a German writer, who has written novels and produced several collections of short stories, essays, and plays for radio and the theatre. He was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt-am-Main on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth...
(Germany) - Luljeta LleshanakuLuljeta LleshanakuLuljeta Lleshanaku is an Albanian poet who is the recipient of the 2009 Vilenice Kristal prize for world poetry She was educated in literature at the University of Tirana and was editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Zëri i rinisë...
(Albania) - Federico García LorcaFederico García LorcaFederico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
(Spain) - Stéphane MallarméStéphane MallarméStéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
(France) - Javier MaríasJavier MaríasJavier Marías is a Spanish novelist. He is also a translator and columnist.-Life:Javier Marías was born in Madrid. His father was the philosopher Julián Marías, who was briefly imprisoned and then banned from teaching for opposing Franco...
(Spain) - Henri MichauxHenri MichauxHenri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...
(France) - Frédéric MistralFrédéric MistralFrédéric Mistral was a French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language. Mistral won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904 and was a founding member of Félibrige and a member of l'Académie de Marseille...
(France) - Eugenio MontaleEugenio MontaleEugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.- Early years :...
(Italy) - Vladimir NabokovVladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
(Russia) - Boris PasternakBoris PasternakBoris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
(Russia) - Victor PelevinVictor PelevinVictor Olegovich Pelevin is a Russian fiction writer. His books usually carry the outward conventions of the science fiction genre, but are used to construct involved, multi-layered postmodernist texts, fusing together elements of pop culture and esoteric philosophies...
(Russia) - Saint-John PerseSaint-John PerseSaint-John Perse was a French poet, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his poetry." He was also a major French diplomat from 1914 to 1940, after which he lived primarily in the USA until 1967.-Biography:Alexis Leger was...
(France)
- Raymond QueneauRaymond QueneauRaymond Queneau was a French poet and novelist and the co-founder of Ouvroir de littérature potentielle .-Biography:Born in Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, Queneau was the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot...
(France) - Rainer Maria RilkeRainer Maria RilkeRené Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
(Germany) - Arthur RimbaudArthur RimbaudJean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
(France) - Joseph RothJoseph RothJoseph Roth, born Moses Joseph Roth , was an Austrian journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga Radetzky March about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and for his novel of Jewish life, Job as well as the seminal essay 'Juden auf Wanderschaft' translated in...
(Austria) - W. G. SebaldW. G. SebaldW. G. Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature...
(Germany) - Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
(French) - StendhalStendhalMarie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
(France) - Antonio TabucchiAntonio TabucchiAntonio Tabucchi is an Italian writer and academic who teaches Portuguese language and literature at the University of Siena, Italy....
(Italy) - Uwe TimmUwe Timm-Life and work:Uwe Timm was the youngest son in his family. His brother, 16 years his senior, was a soldier in the Waffen SS and died in Ukraine in 1943...
(Germany) - Leonid TsypkinLeonid TsypkinLeonid Borisovich Tsypkin was a Soviet writer and medical doctor, best known for his book Summer in Baden-Baden.-Early life:...
(Russia) - Tomas TranströmerTomas TranströmerTomas Gösta Tranströmer is a Swedish writer, poet and translator, whose poetry has been translated into over 60 languages. Tranströmer is acclaimed as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since the Second World War...
(Sweden) - Dubravka UgrešićDubravka UgrešicDubravka Ugrešić is a Croatian writer who lives in the Netherlands.- Background and education:Ugrešić was born in 1949 in Kutina, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia., She studied Comparative Literature and Russian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, pursuing parallel careers as a...
(Yugoslavia) - Paul ValéryPaul ValéryAmbroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
(France) - Enrique Vila-MatasEnrique Vila-MatasEnrique Vila-Matas is a Spanish novelist who has had a long and outstanding literary career and is one of the most prestigious and original writers in contemporary Spanish fiction...
(Spain) - Elio VittoriniElio VittoriniElio Vittorini was an Italian writer and novelist. He was a contemporary of Cesare Pavese and an influential voice in the modernist school of novel writing. His best-known work is the anti-fascist novel Conversations in Sicily, for which he was jailed when it was published in 1941. The first U.S...
(Italy) - Robert WalserRobert Walser (writer)Robert Walser , was a German-speaking Swiss writer.-1878–1897:...
(Switzerland)
Chinese and Japanese Literature
- Zhong AchengZhong AchengZhong Acheng , often known by his pseudonym Ah Cheng, is a Chinese author and screenwriter.In 1979, together with Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Qu Leilei, Ai Weiwei, A Cheng founded the Stars Group , an assembly of untrained, experimental artists who challenged the strict tenets of...
(Ah Cheng) (China) - Bei DaoBei DaoBei Dao is the pseudonym of Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai . He was born in Beijing, his pseudonym was chosen because he came from the north and because of his preference for solitude...
(China) - Osamu DazaiOsamu Dazaiwas a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan.-Biography:-Early life:Dazai was born , the eighth surviving child of a wealthy landowner in Kanagi, a remote corner of Japan at the northern tip of Tōhoku in Aomori Prefecture...
(Japan) - Shusaku EndoShusaku EndoShūsaku Endō was a 20th-century Japanese author who wrote from the unusual perspective of being both Japanese and Catholic...
(Japan) - Tu Fu (China)
- Takashi Hiraide (Japan)
- Taeko Kono (Japan)
- Shimpei Kusano (Japan)
- Linda Lê (Vietnam)
- Yukio MishimaYukio Mishimawas the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
(Japan) - Teru MiyamotoTeru Miyamotois a Japanese author.-Biography:Miyamoto was born in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan and graduated from the faculty of letters at Otemon Gakuin University after which he became a copywriter. In 1970, he began to write his first novel and quit his job...
(Japan)
- Li Po (China)
- Ihara SaikakuIhara Saikakuwas a Japanese poet and creator of the "floating world" genre of Japanese prose .-Biography:Born the son of the wealthy merchant Hirayama Tōgo in Osaka, he first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku, and later studied under Nishiyama Sōin of the Danrin School of poetry, which emphasized...
(Japan) - Kazuko ShiraishiKazuko ShiraishiKazuko Shiraishi is a Japanese poet and translator who was born in Vancouver, Canada. She is a modernist, outsider poet who got her start in Katsue Kitazono's VOU poetry group, which led Shiraishi to publish her first book of poems in 1951. She soon became involved in jazz performance and beat...
(Japan) - Yoko TawadaYoko TawadaYōko Tawada is a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany.Tawada was born in Tokyo, received her undergraduate education at Waseda University in 1982 with a major in Russian literature, then studied at Hamburg University where she received a master's degree in contemporary German...
(Japan/Germany) - Yuko Tsushima (Japan)
- Wang WeiWang WeiWang Wei , was a Tang Dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman. He was one of the most famous men of arts and letters of his time. Many of his poems are preserved, and twenty-nine were included in the highly influential 18th century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems.-Name...
(China) - Tian WenTian WenTian Wen can refer to:*Lord Mengchang of Qi, who was named Tian Wen at birth*The Heavenly Questions section of the Classical Chinese poetry work Chuci...
(China) - Mu Xin (China)
- Can Xue (China)
- Qian ZhongshuQian ZhongshuQian Zhongshu was a Chinese literary scholar and writer, known for his wit and erudition.He is best known for his satiric novel Fortress Besieged . His works of non-fiction are characterised by their large amount of quotations in both Chinese and Western languages...
(China)
Middle Eastern and Indian Literature
- Ilango AdigalIlango AdigalIlango Adigal was a Tamil poet and a Jain monk, who was instrumental in the creation of Silappathikaram, one of the five great epics of Tamil Literature. Prince Ilango was the brother of Chera king Cheran Chenguttuvan , in South India. Ilango Adigal was born in the Chera dynasty that ruled parts...
(India) - Albert CosseryAlbert CosseryAlbert Cossery was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syrian and Lebanese descent, born in Cairo.- Life :...
(Egypt) - Yoel HoffmannYoel HoffmannYoel Hoffmann is a contemporary Jewish author, editor, scholar and translator. He is currently a professor of Japanese poetry, Buddhism, and philosophy at the University of Haifa in Israel and lives in Galilee.-Biography:...
(Israel)
- Qurratulain HyderQurratulain HyderQurrat-ul-Ain Haider was an influential Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature, she is most known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya , a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that...
(India) - Bilge Karasu (Turkey)
- Abdelfattah KilitoAbdelfattah KilitoAbdelfattah Kilito is a well known Moroccan writer. He was born in Rabat in 1945. He is the author of several books in Arabic and in French. He has also written articles for magazines like Poétique and Studia Islamica...
(Morocco)
- Dunya MikhailDunya MikhailDunya Mikhail is an ethnic Chaldean United States-based poet who was born in Iraq. Mikhail worked as Literary Editor for The Baghdad Observer. Facing increasing threats and harassment from the Iraqi authorities for her writings, she fled Iraq in the late 1990s and studied Near Eastern Studies at...
(Iraq) - Raja RaoRaja RaoRaja Rao was an Indian writer of English language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in Hinduism. Raja Rao's semi-autobiographical novel, The Serpent and the Rope , is a story of a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India...
(India)
- Aharon ShabtaiAharon ShabtaiAharon Shabtai is one of the Hebrew language's leading poets, as well as a translator of Greek drama into Hebrew.-Biography:...
(Israel) - Hassan Shah (India)
Jacket design and colophon
After the time of World War II, New Directions developed a close relationship with the artist Alvin LustigAlvin Lustig
Alvin Lustig was an American graphic designer and typeface designer. He studied at Los Angeles City College, Art Center, and independently with Frank Lloyd Wright and Jean Charlot. He began designing for books in 1937. In 1944 he became Director of Visual Research for Look Magazine. He also...
, who designed modernist abstract book jackets. Lustig was ultimately responsible for developing a distinctive style of dust jacket that served as a New Directions hallmark for many years.
The company's colophon is a figure of a centaur based upon a sculpture by Heinz Henghes, and usually appears on the spine of New Directions books.
Bestsellers
- LabyrinthsLabyrinthsLabyrinths is an English-language collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges.It includes "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", and "The Library of Babel", three of Borges' most famous stories. Many of the stories are from the collections Ficciones and El...
, Jorge Luis Borges - A Coney Island of the MindA Coney Island of the MindA Coney Island of the Mind is a collection of poetry by Lawrence Ferlinghetti originally published in 1958. It contains some of Ferlinghetti's most famous poems, such as "I Am Waiting", and "Junkman's Obbligato", which were created for jazz accompaniment...
, Lawrence Ferlinghetti - SiddharthaSiddhartha (novel)Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of an Indian man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha.The book, Hesse's ninth novel , was written in German, in a simple, powerful, and lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential...
, Herman Hesse - Chrystie Malry's Own Double-Eitry, B.S. Johnson
- Selected Poems, Denise Levertov
- The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller
- NauseaNauseaNausea , is a sensation of unease and discomfort in the upper stomach with an involuntary urge to vomit. It often, but not always, precedes vomiting...
, Jean-Paul Sartre - Turtle IslandTurtle Island (poetry book)Turtle Island is a book of poetry written by Gary Snyder in 1974. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975. The work is titled after an English translation of many Native American tribes' terms for North America: Turtle Island....
, Gary Snyder - Miss LonelyheartsMiss LonelyheartsMiss Lonelyhearts, published in 1933, is Nathanael West's second novel. It is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression.-Plot summary:...
& The Day of the LocustThe Day of the LocustThe Day of the Locust is a 1939 novel by American author Nathanael West, set in Hollywood, California during the Great Depression, its overarching themes deal with the alienation and desperation of a broad group of odd individuals who exist at the fringes of the Hollywood movie industry.In 1998,...
, Nathanael West - The Glass MenagerieThe Glass MenagerieThe Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
, Tennessee Williams - Selected Poems, William Carlos Williams
- The CantosThe CantosThe Cantos by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered...
, Ezra Pound
Further reading
- Laughlin, James. "The Way It Wasn't." Ed. Barbara Epler and Daniel Javitch. New York: New Directions, 2006.