Bookforum
Encyclopedia
Bookforum is a New York-based magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature. It is edited by Albert Mobilio
, Chris Lehmann, David O'Neill, and Michael Miller.
Bookforum was launched in 1994 as a literary supplement to Artforum
. Originally published biannually, Bookforum became a quarterly in 1998, and since 2005, the magazine has published five times a year, with issues coming out in February, April, June, September, and December. Describing Bookforum to the Village Voice in 2003, former editor Eric Banks said that Bookforum targets a demographic "like the New York Review's but much younger. I think there is an audience of intellectual readers between 25 and 40 out there—the kind of person who buys The New Republic
, The Nation
, and The New York Review of Books
, but doesn't have an allegiance to a particular publication."
In addition to publishing book reviews, essays, and current events columns, Bookforum regularly features interviews with authors, including:
In 2009, the magazine’s website was redesigned to include a nationwide literary events calendar, internet exclusive daily book reviews, two blogs—Paper Trail and Omnivore—and a section called Syllabi, which features reading lists written by authors and critics.
Albert Mobilio
Albert Mobilio is an American poet and critic.He teaches at Eugene Lang College, liberal arts college of The New School university.His work appears in Bomb, Salon, Postmodern Culture, Harper's.He is co-editor of Bookforum.-Awards:...
, Chris Lehmann, David O'Neill, and Michael Miller.
History
Bookforum was launched in 1994 as a literary supplement to 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...
. Originally published biannually, Bookforum became a quarterly in 1998, and since 2005, the magazine has published five times a year, with issues coming out in February, April, June, September, and December. Describing Bookforum to the Village Voice in 2003, former editor Eric Banks said that Bookforum targets a demographic "like the New York Review's but much younger. I think there is an audience of intellectual readers between 25 and 40 out there—the kind of person who buys The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, and The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
, but doesn't have an allegiance to a particular publication."
In addition to publishing book reviews, essays, and current events columns, Bookforum regularly features interviews with authors, including:
- John IrvingJohn IrvingJohn Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
- A. S. ByattA. S. ByattDame Antonia Susan Duffy, DBE is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner...
- Aleksandar HemonAleksandar HemonAleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American fiction writer. He is the winner of a MacArthur Foundation grant. He has written four acclaimed books: Love and Obstacles: Stories , The Lazarus Project: A Novel , which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle...
- Mary GaitskillMary GaitskillMary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...
- Jhumpa LahiriJhumpa LahiriJhumpa Lahiri is a Bengali American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies , won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake , was adapted into the popular film of the same name. She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna, which she says are both...
- Jerome CharynJerome CharynJerome Charyn is an award-winning American author. With nearly 50 published works, Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life...
- William T. VollmannWilliam T. VollmannWilliam Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer, essayist and winner of the National Book Award...
- Gore VidalGore VidalGore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
- Amy HempelAmy HempelAmy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College.-Life:Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois...
- Bernard-Henri LévyBernard-Henri LévyBernard-Henri Lévy is a French public intellectual, philosopher and journalist. Often referred to today, in France, simply as BHL, he was one of the leaders of the "Nouveaux Philosophes" movement in 1976.-Early life:...
- Nadine GordimerNadine GordimerNadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...
- Vikram SethVikram SethVikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta...
- John BarthJohn BarthJohn Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...
- Lydia DavisLydia DavisLydia Davis is a contemporary American writer noted for her short stories. Davis is also a French translator, and has produced several new translations of French literary classics, including Proust's Swann’s Way and Flaubert's Madame Bovary....
- Robert Stone
- Alain Robbe-GrilletAlain Robbe-GrilletAlain Robbe-Grillet , was a French writer and filmmaker. He was, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon, one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend. Alain Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice...
- Umberto EcoUmberto EcoUmberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
- Cees NooteboomCees NooteboomCees Nooteboom is a Dutch author. He has won numerous literary awards and has been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature.-Life:...
- Doris LessingDoris LessingDoris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
- Alan MooreAlan MooreAlan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
- Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieChimamanda Ngozi AdichieChimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer.Her family is of Igbo descent. In 2008 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.-Early life and education:...
- Haruki MurakamiHaruki Murakamiis a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize among others.He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature...
- John AshberyJohn AshberyJohn 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...
- Michael OndaatjeMichael OndaatjePhilip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...
- 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...
- Susan SontagSusan SontagSusan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
- Lorrie MooreLorrie MooreLorrie Moore is an American fiction writer known mainly for her humorous and poignant short stories.-Biography:...
- Salman Rushdie
- Martin AmisMartin AmisMartin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
- 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:...
In 2009, the magazine’s website was redesigned to include a nationwide literary events calendar, internet exclusive daily book reviews, two blogs—Paper Trail and Omnivore—and a section called Syllabi, which features reading lists written by authors and critics.
Notable contributors
- John BanvilleJohn BanvilleJohn Banville is an Irish novelist and screenwriter.Banville's breakthrough novel The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Guinness Peat Aviation award. His eighteenth novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. He was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011...
, novelist and critic - Colm TóibínColm TóibínColm Tóibín is a multi-award-winning Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and, most recently, poet.Tóibín is Leonard Milberg Lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University in New Jersey and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the...
, novelist and critic - Michael DirdaMichael DirdaMichael Dirda , a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic for the Washington Post.-Career:Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree, Dirda took a Ph.D. from Cornell University in comparative literature. In 1978 Dirda started writing for the...
, critic - Richard HellRichard HellRichard Hell is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion. He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins...
, writer and musician - Sheila HetiSheila HetiSheila Heti is a Canadian writer.Heti, who was born in Toronto, Ontario, studied art history and philosophy at the University of Toronto and playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada....
, novelist - Mary GaitskillMary GaitskillMary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...
, novelist and short story writer - Keith GessenKeith GessenKeith Gessen is a co-editor of n+1, a thrice-yearly magazine of literature, politics, and culture based in New York City.- Biography :...
, co-founder of n+1N+1n+1 is a New York–based American literary magazine that publishes social criticism, political commentary, essays, art, poetry, book reviews, and short fiction. It is published three times each year, and content is published on several times each week... - Maureen HowardMaureen HowardMaureen Howard is an American writer, editor, and lecturer known for her award-winning autobiography Facts of Life.She was born Maureen Kearns in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her father William L. Kearns worked for the State's Attorney's Office as a detective where he was assigned to the Harold Israel...
, novelist - Greil MarcusGreil MarcusGreil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
, music journalist and critic - Wayne KoestenbaumWayne KoestenbaumWayne Koestenbaum is an American poet and cultural critic. He received a B.A. from Harvard University, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University...
, poet and critic - Rebecca WalkerRebecca WalkerRebecca Walker is an American writer. She has been named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 future leaders of America.-Early life:...
, writer and activist - A. S. ByattA. S. ByattDame Antonia Susan Duffy, DBE is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner...
, novelist and poet - Billy CollinsBilly CollinsBilly Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...
, poet - Salman Rushdie, novelist and essayist
- William H. GassWilliam H. GassWilliam Howard Gass is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and former philosophy professor. He has written two novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven volumes of essays, three of which have won National Book Critics Circle Award...
, writer - Jennifer EganJennifer EganJennifer Egan is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Egan's novel A Visit From the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction....
, novelist and short story writer - Lorin SteinLorin SteinLorin H. Stein is an American critic, editor, and translator. He is the editor of The Paris Review.-Biography:Stein was born and raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended the Sidwell Friends School. He graduated from Yale College in 1995...
, editor and critic - Naguib MahfouzNaguib MahfouzNaguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie...
, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature - Adam ZagajewskiAdam ZagajewskiAdam Zagajewski is a Polish poet, novelist, translator and essayist.In 1982 he emigrated to Paris, but in 2002 he returned to Poland, and resides in Kraków. His poem "Try To Praise The Mutilated World", printed in The New Yorker, became famous after the 11 September attacks...
, poet and essayist - Germaine GreerGermaine GreerGermaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
, writer and academic - Daphne MerkinDaphne MerkinDaphne Miriam Merkin is a literary critic, essayist and novelist. Merkin is a graduate of Barnard College. She also attended Columbia University's graduate program in English literature....
, critic - Marjorie PerloffMarjorie PerloffMarjorie Perloff is an Austrian-born U.S. poetry critic.Perloff was born Gabriele Mintz into a secularized Jewish family in Vienna. Faced with Nazi terror, her family emigrated in 1938 when she was six-and-a-half, going first to Zürich and then to the United States, settling in Riverdale, New York...
, poet - William T. VollmannWilliam T. VollmannWilliam Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer, essayist and winner of the National Book Award...
, novelist and journalist - Richard FordRichard FordRichard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...
, novelist and short story writer - Hari Kunzru, novelist and journalist
- Michael WoodMichael WoodMichael David Wood is an English historian and broadcaster. He has presented numerous television documentary series, has made over 80 documentary films, most notably, Great Railway Journeys , Art of the Western World, Legacy: A Search for the Origins of Civilization, In the Footsteps of Alexander...
, academic - Geoff DyerGeoff DyerGeoff Dyer is a British author and novelist. He is also a journalist who writes about a wide range of topics. His published work includes four novels and several books of non-fiction, which have won a number of literary awards...
, novelist and critic - Rick MoodyRick MoodyRick Moody is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into a feature film of...
, novelist
- Stephin MerrittStephin MerrittStephin Merritt is an American singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles , best known as the principal singer and songwriter in the band The Magnetic Fields...
, musician - Kim GordonKim GordonKim Althea Gordon is an American musician, vocalist, artist, record producer, video director and actress. She has sung and played bass and guitar in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, and in Free Kitten with Julia Cafritz...
, artist and musician - Amy HempelAmy HempelAmy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College.-Life:Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois...
, short story writer - Dave EggersDave EggersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...
, writer and publisher - J. G. BallardJ. G. BallardJames Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction...
, novelist and short story writer - Jonathan LethemJonathan LethemJonathan 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...
, novelist - Barbara KrugerBarbara KrugerBarbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed...
, artist - Glenn O'BrienGlenn O'BrienGlenn O'Brien is primarily a writer, largely on the subjects of art, music and fashion. He's featured as "The Style Guy" at GQ magazine, and has published a book with that title....
, editor and critic - Lydia DavisLydia DavisLydia Davis is a contemporary American writer noted for her short stories. Davis is also a French translator, and has produced several new translations of French literary classics, including Proust's Swann’s Way and Flaubert's Madame Bovary....
, short story writer and translator - Phillip LopatePhillip LopateDoctor Phillip Lopate is an American film critic, essayist, fiction writer, poet, and teacher. He is the younger brother of radio host Leonard Lopate.-Early life and education:...
, film critic and writer - Gerald EarlyGerald EarlyGerald L. Early is an American essayist and American culture critic. He is currently the Merle Kling Professor of Modern letters, of English, African studies, African American studies, American culture studies, and Director, Center for Joint Projects in the Humanities and Social Sciences at ...
, writer and academic - Patrick McGrathPatrick McGrathPatrick McGrath was born on 7th February, 1950 in London and grew up near Broadmoor Hospital where his father was Medical Superintendent. He was educated at Stonyhurst College. He is a British novelist whose work has been categorized as gothic fiction...
, writer and academic - Toril MoiToril MoiToril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway...
, academic - Matthew PriceMatthew PriceMatthew Price is a British journalist who currently works as Europe correspondent for the BBC.-Education:Price was educated at St Catharine's College at the University of Cambridge, gaining a First Class degree in Geography....
, journalist - Stacey D'ErasmoStacey D'Erasmo-Biography:D'Erasmo was born in 1961 in New York City. She received a B.A. from Barnard College and an M.A. from New York University in English and American Literature. From 1988 to 1995, she was a senior Editor at the Voice Literary Supplement. She was a Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford...
, novelist - Francine ProseFrancine ProseFrancine Prose is an American writer. Since March 2007 she has been the president of PEN American Center. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991....
, novelist - Lynne TillmanLynne TillmanLynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is currently Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany and is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, one collection of essays, and two other nonfiction...
, novelist, short story writer, and critic - Caryl PhillipsCaryl PhillipsCaryl Phillips is a British writer with a Caribbean background, best known as a novelist. He is now professor at Yale University and a visiting professor at Barnard College of Columbia University.-Life:...
, novelist - Michael MustoMichael MustoMichael Musto is an American columnist for the The Village Voice, where he writes La Dolce Musto. Musto was born in Brooklyn to an Italian American family. He attended Columbia University graduating in 1976. During his studies, he was a theater critic for the Columbia Spectator...
, columnist - Andrew SolomonAndrew SolomonAndrew 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,...
, writer - Nan GoldinNan GoldinNancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
, photographer - Thelma GoldenThelma GoldenThelma Golden is the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, USA. Golden joined the Museum as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs in 2000 before succeeding Dr Lowery Stokes Sims, the Museum’s former Director and President, in 2005.-Early life and...
, curator - D. A. MillerD. A. MillerD. A. Miller is an American literary critic, working mostly on the novel, especially of the Victorian era, as well as on film and different aspects of gender and sexuality studies...
, academic and critic - Harold BloomHarold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
, academic and critic - Dennis CooperDennis CooperDennis Cooper is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist.-Career:Cooper grew up the son of a wealthy businessman in Arcadia, California. His first forays into literature came early, focusing on imitations of Rimbaud, Verlaine, de Sade, and Baudelaire...
, writer, editor, and artist - Sarah VowellSarah VowellSarah Jane Vowell is an American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator. Often referred to as a "social observer," Vowell has written five nonfiction books on American history and culture, and was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio...
, writer and journalist - bell hooksBell hooksGloria Jean Watkins , better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, feminist, and social activist....
, author and activist - Louise BourgeoisLouise BourgeoisLouise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...
, artist