Andrew Solomon
Encyclopedia
Andrew Solomon is a New York
-born bisexual writer on politics, culture, and psychiatry who lives in New York
and London
. He has written for publications such as the New York Times, The New Yorker
, and Artforum
, on topics including depression
, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libya
n politics, and deaf politics. He is also a contributing writer for Travel and Leisure. In 2008, he was awarded the Humanitarian Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry for his contributions to the field of mental health. He has a staff appointment as a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University
His most recent book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
, won the 2001 National Book Award
; it was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize
, and has been published in 24 languages.
, graduating cum laude. He received a Bachelor of Arts
degree in English from Yale University
in 1985, graduating magna cum laude. He studied English at Jesus College, Cambridge
, earning the top first-class degree in English in his year, and an MA. As of 2009, he is pursuing a PhD at Jesus College, Cambridge in psychology, working on attachment theory under the supervision of Prof. Juliet Mitchell.
, as an adult Solomon became a dual citizen of the United States
and United Kingdom
. Solomon had an official civil partnership ceremony to journalist and editor John Habich on June 30, 2007, at Althorp, the childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales; the New York Times featured the wedding in their "Vows" column, The New York Times
, July 8, 2007, and Tatler
ran a six-page feature. The Daily Beast included it on their list of the ten most worthy gay weddings. The wedding ceremony that Solomon and Habich wrote for that occasion has been taught as a sample text at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
in a course on privacy and civil rights law.
Solomon and Habich married again on July 19, 2009, the eighth anniversary of their meeting, in Connecticut, so that they would have a marriage that was legally recognized in the state of New York.
In November 2008, Solomon fathered a daughter, Carolyn Blaine Smith Solomon, with a female Yale classmate, Blaine Smith, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas. He fathered a son, George Charles Habich Solomon, in April 2009, who lives with Solomon and Habich, his adoptive father, in New York.
Solomon's father, Howard Solomon
, is chairman of Forest Laboratories
, a company noted for its production of anti-depressants, a field the company entered after Howard Solomon saw how effective anti-depressant treatment was for his son. The story of their relationship was a cover article in Business Week on May 27, 2002. Another story appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek in July 2011.
Andrew Solomon's brother, David Solomon, is a senior executive at Forest Laboratories.
Solomon's mother chose euthanasia at the end of a long battle with cancer, and Solomon has written of the experience of being present at her planned suicide, in an article about euthanasia for the New Yorker
, and in a fictionalized account in his novel, A Stone Boat; and again in his book The Noonday Demon.
Solomon was asked in 1993 to consult with members of the National Security Council on Russian affairs and some of his words were used in President Bill Clinton's first Russia speeches.
Solomon was a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine
from 1993-2001.
His first novel, A Stone Boat (Faber, 1994), tells the story of a man's shifting identity as he watches his mother battle cancer. It was a runner up for the LA Times First Fiction prize and was a national bestseller; it has now been published in 5 languages and is being developed as a film.
Solomon's most recent book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (Scribner, 2001), has won him fourteen national awards, including the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist status. It has been on the New York Times bestseller list in both hardback and paperback, and has also been a bestseller in seven foreign countries. Mr Solomon has lectured on depression around the world, including stints at Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress.
Andrew Solomon's writing on cystic fibrosis has won him the Angel of Awareness Award of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, as well as the Clarion Award for Journalism. In April 2009, he won the Bert I Green Award of the International Association of Culinary Professionals for his profile of Grant Achatz in Food and Wine magazine. He has written essays for many recent anthologies and books of criticism, including an essay for My Father Married Your Mother: Writers Talk About Stepfamilies (ed. Anne Burt) pub. by Norton, one for Coach (ed. Andrew Blauner), pub. by Warner Books, 2005, one for Who Owns the Past: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (ed. Kate Fitz Gibbon), pub. by Rutgers University Press, 2005, one for The Proust Project (ed. Andre Aciman), pub. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, one for Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS (ed. Edmund White), pub. by University of Wisconsin Press, 2001, and one for Our Mother's Spirit's (ed. Bob Blauner), pub. by HarperCollins, 1998. His writing was also selected for Best American Travel Writing 2007 (ed. Susan Orlean), pub. Mariner Books, 2007 and Best American Travel Writing 2003 (ed. Ian Frazier), pub. Houghton Mifflin, 2003 . He has written critical afterwares to the reissues of Corrigan by Caroline Blackwood, pub. NY Review of Books Press, 2002, and to Bertram Cope's Year by Henry Blake fuller, pub. by Turtle Point Press, 1999.
He is writing a book, to be published in 2010, called A Dozen Kinds of Love: Raising Remarkable Children, which deals with how families accommodate children with physical, mental and social disabilities.
rights, mental health, and the arts. For LGBT rights, He serves on the boards of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
and Trans Youth Family Allies. He established the Solomon Fellowships at Yale University
for students who wish to do research in LGBT studies; they are awarded on a competitive basis every spring. he has written on gay marriage for The Advocate
and for Anderson Cooper
's blog http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/, and he wrote the gay issues piece for Newsweeks Obama inaugural issue.
In mental health, he is a lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College http://www.med.cornell.edu/, where he lectures on depression, schizophrenia, and autism. He serves on the boards of the Depression Center of the University of Michigan
, the Columbia University
Medical School (Board of Visitors), Columbia Psychiatry
, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
; he is also on the advisory board of the Mental Health Policy Forum at the Mailman School of Public at Columbia University
.
In the arts, he serves on the boards of the Alliance for the Arts, the World Monuments Fund
, and Yaddo (member of the corporation). He is also a member of the Asian Art Council of the Guggenheim
and the Chairman's Council of the Metropolitan Museum, and serves on the Library Council of the New York Public Library
.
He is also on the board of The Alex Fund, which supports gypsy education in Romania.
He is a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University
and is a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities
, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
.
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
-born bisexual writer on politics, culture, and psychiatry who lives in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He has written for publications such as the New York Times, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, and Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
, on topics including depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
n politics, and deaf politics. He is also a contributing writer for Travel and Leisure. In 2008, he was awarded the Humanitarian Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry for his contributions to the field of mental health. He has a staff appointment as a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University
His most recent book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is a 2001 memoir written by Andrew Solomon. It examines the personal, cultural, and scientific aspects of depression through Solomon's published interviews with depression sufferers, doctors, research scientists, politicians, and pharmaceutical...
, won the 2001 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
; it was a finalist for the 2002 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...
, and has been published in 24 languages.
Education
Solomon attended the private preparatory school Horace MannHorace Mann
Horace Mann was an American education reformer, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833. He served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1834 to 1837. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was...
, graduating cum laude. He received a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in English from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1985, graduating magna cum laude. He studied English at Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
, earning the top first-class degree in English in his year, and an MA. As of 2009, he is pursuing a PhD at Jesus College, Cambridge in psychology, working on attachment theory under the supervision of Prof. Juliet Mitchell.
Family
Born and raised in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as an adult Solomon became a dual citizen of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Solomon had an official civil partnership ceremony to journalist and editor John Habich on June 30, 2007, at Althorp, the childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales; the New York Times featured the wedding in their "Vows" column, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, July 8, 2007, and Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
ran a six-page feature. The Daily Beast included it on their list of the ten most worthy gay weddings. The wedding ceremony that Solomon and Habich wrote for that occasion has been taught as a sample text at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
University of Pennsylvania Law School
The University of Pennsylvania Law School, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania. A member of the Ivy League, it is among the oldest and most selective law schools in the nation. It is currently ranked 7th overall by U.S. News & World Report,...
in a course on privacy and civil rights law.
Solomon and Habich married again on July 19, 2009, the eighth anniversary of their meeting, in Connecticut, so that they would have a marriage that was legally recognized in the state of New York.
In November 2008, Solomon fathered a daughter, Carolyn Blaine Smith Solomon, with a female Yale classmate, Blaine Smith, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas. He fathered a son, George Charles Habich Solomon, in April 2009, who lives with Solomon and Habich, his adoptive father, in New York.
Solomon's father, Howard Solomon
Howard Solomon
Howard Solomon is head of Forest Laboratories and father of novelist and writer Andrew Solomon....
, is chairman of Forest Laboratories
Forest Laboratories
Forest Laboratories is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York City, USA. Its revenues for the year ended 31 March 2007 were US$3.4 billion. The company's research and development spending has grown rapidly in recent years, and as of 2007, approached almost a billion US dollars a year,...
, a company noted for its production of anti-depressants, a field the company entered after Howard Solomon saw how effective anti-depressant treatment was for his son. The story of their relationship was a cover article in Business Week on May 27, 2002. Another story appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek in July 2011.
Andrew Solomon's brother, David Solomon, is a senior executive at Forest Laboratories.
Solomon's mother chose euthanasia at the end of a long battle with cancer, and Solomon has written of the experience of being present at her planned suicide, in an article about euthanasia for the New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, and in a fictionalized account in his novel, A Stone Boat; and again in his book The Noonday Demon.
Publications and career
In 1988, Solomon began his study of Russian artists, which culminated with the publication of The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (Knopf, 1991).Solomon was asked in 1993 to consult with members of the National Security Council on Russian affairs and some of his words were used in President Bill Clinton's first Russia speeches.
Solomon was a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
from 1993-2001.
His first novel, A Stone Boat (Faber, 1994), tells the story of a man's shifting identity as he watches his mother battle cancer. It was a runner up for the LA Times First Fiction prize and was a national bestseller; it has now been published in 5 languages and is being developed as a film.
Solomon's most recent book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (Scribner, 2001), has won him fourteen national awards, including the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist status. It has been on the New York Times bestseller list in both hardback and paperback, and has also been a bestseller in seven foreign countries. Mr Solomon has lectured on depression around the world, including stints at Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress.
Andrew Solomon's writing on cystic fibrosis has won him the Angel of Awareness Award of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, as well as the Clarion Award for Journalism. In April 2009, he won the Bert I Green Award of the International Association of Culinary Professionals for his profile of Grant Achatz in Food and Wine magazine. He has written essays for many recent anthologies and books of criticism, including an essay for My Father Married Your Mother: Writers Talk About Stepfamilies (ed. Anne Burt) pub. by Norton, one for Coach (ed. Andrew Blauner), pub. by Warner Books, 2005, one for Who Owns the Past: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (ed. Kate Fitz Gibbon), pub. by Rutgers University Press, 2005, one for The Proust Project (ed. Andre Aciman), pub. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, one for Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS (ed. Edmund White), pub. by University of Wisconsin Press, 2001, and one for Our Mother's Spirit's (ed. Bob Blauner), pub. by HarperCollins, 1998. His writing was also selected for Best American Travel Writing 2007 (ed. Susan Orlean), pub. Mariner Books, 2007 and Best American Travel Writing 2003 (ed. Ian Frazier), pub. Houghton Mifflin, 2003 . He has written critical afterwares to the reissues of Corrigan by Caroline Blackwood, pub. NY Review of Books Press, 2002, and to Bertram Cope's Year by Henry Blake fuller, pub. by Turtle Point Press, 1999.
He is writing a book, to be published in 2010, called A Dozen Kinds of Love: Raising Remarkable Children, which deals with how families accommodate children with physical, mental and social disabilities.
Activism and philanthropy
Solomon is an activist and philanthropist in three areas: LGBTLGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
rights, mental health, and the arts. For LGBT rights, He serves on the boards of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force builds the political power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community from the ground up. The Task Force is the country’s premier social justice organization fighting to improve the lives of LGBT people, and working to create positive, lasting...
and Trans Youth Family Allies. He established the Solomon Fellowships at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
for students who wish to do research in LGBT studies; they are awarded on a competitive basis every spring. he has written on gay marriage for The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
and for Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper
Anderson Hays Cooper is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories...
's blog http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/, and he wrote the gay issues piece for Newsweeks Obama inaugural issue.
In mental health, he is a lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College http://www.med.cornell.edu/, where he lectures on depression, schizophrenia, and autism. He serves on the boards of the Depression Center of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Medical School (Board of Visitors), Columbia Psychiatry
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. The Laboratory has a broad educational mission, including the recently established Watson School of Biological Sciences. It...
; he is also on the advisory board of the Mental Health Policy Forum at the Mailman School of Public at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
In the arts, he serves on the boards of the Alliance for the Arts, the World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training....
, and Yaddo (member of the corporation). He is also a member of the Asian Art Council of the Guggenheim
Guggenheim
Guggenheim may refer to:* Benjamin Guggenheim* Charles Guggenheim* Davis Guggenheim* Guggenheim Building* Guggenheim family* Guggenheim Fellowship* Guggenheim Museum * Harry Frank Guggenheim* John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation...
and the Chairman's Council of the Metropolitan Museum, and serves on the Library Council of the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
.
He is also on the board of The Alex Fund, which supports gypsy education in Romania.
He is a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and is a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities
New York Institute for the Humanities
The New York Institute for the Humanities is an academic organisation affiliated with New York University, founded by Richard Sennett in 1976 to promote the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals and the general public. The NYIH regularly holds seminars open to the public, as well as...
, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
.