David Remnick
Encyclopedia
David Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and magazine editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize
in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker
magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age
in 2000. Before joining The New Yorker, Remnick was a reporter and the Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post
. He has also served on the New York Public Library
's board of trustees. In 2010 he published his sixth book The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
.
, the son of a dentist and an art teacher. He was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey
, in a secular Jewish home with, he has said, "a lot of books around." He is also childhood friends with comedian Bill Maher
. He graduated from Princeton University
with an A.B. in comparative literature in 1981; there, he met writer John McPhee
and helped found The Nassau Weekly
. Remnick has implied that after college he would have wanted to try to write novels, but due to his parents' illnesses, he knew that he would need a paying job — there was no trust fund that was about to kick in. He wanted to be a writer, so he chose a career in journalism, taking a job at the Washington Post. He is married to reporter Esther Fein of The New York Times
and has three children, Alex, Noah, and Natasha. He enjoys jazz music and classic cinema and is fluent in Russian.
in 1982 shortly after his graduation from Princeton. His first assignment was in sports where he covered the United States Football League
. After six years, in 1988, he became the newspaper's Moscow
correspondent, which provided him with the material for his Pulitzer Prize
-winning book, Lenin's Tomb
. He also received the George Polk
Award for excellence in journalism.
in September 1992, after ten years at The Washington Post
.
Remnick's 1997 New Yorker article "Kid Dynamite Blows Up," about boxer Mike Tyson
, won a National Magazine Award.
In 1998, he became editor, succeeding Tina Brown
. Remnick promoted Hendrik Hertzberg
, a former Jimmy Carter
speechwriter and former editor of The New Republic
, to write the lead pieces in “Talk of the Town,” the magazine’s opening section. In 2005, Remnick earned a salary of $1 million per year for his work as editor.
In 2003, he wrote an editorial supporting the Iraq war in the days when it started. In 2004, for the first time in its 80-year history, The New Yorker endorsed a presidential candidate, John Kerry
.
In May 2009 Remnick was featured in a long-form Twitter
account of Dan Baum's career as a New Yorker staff writer. The tweets, written over the course of a week, described the difficult relationship between Baum and Remnick, his editor.
Remnick's biography of President Barack Obama, The Bridge
, was released on April 6, 2010. It features hundreds of interviews with friends, colleagues and other witnesses to Obama's rise to the presidency of the United States. The book has been widely reviewed in journals.
In 2010, Remnick lent his support to the campaign to release Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery.
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...
in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire is a bestselling work by David Remnick. Often cited as an example of New Journalism, it won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1994....
. Remnick has been editor of 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...
magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
in 2000. Before joining The New Yorker, Remnick was a reporter and the Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
. He has also served on 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...
's board of trustees. In 2010 he published his sixth book The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama is a 2010 biography of Barack Obama, written by journalist David Remnick. More than 600 pages long, it concentrates particularly on Obama's rise to power and the presidency of the United States...
.
Early life and family
Remnick was born in Hackensack, New JerseyHackensack, New Jersey
Hackensack is a city in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States and the county seat of Bergen County. Although informally called Hackensack, it was officially named New Barbadoes Township until 1921. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 43,010....
, the son of a dentist and an art teacher. He was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey
Hillsdale, New Jersey
Hillsdale is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 census, the borough population was 10,219.The populated area today known as Hillsdale took form in the mid-to-late 19th century as land speculators, led by David P. Patterson, developed subdivisons to profit from the...
, in a secular Jewish home with, he has said, "a lot of books around." He is also childhood friends with comedian Bill Maher
Bill Maher
William "Bill" Maher, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and...
. He graduated from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
with an A.B. in comparative literature in 1981; there, he met writer John McPhee
John McPhee
John Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....
and helped found The Nassau Weekly
The Nassau Weekly
Nassau Weekly is a weekly student newspaper of Princeton University. Published every Friday, the paper contains a blend of campus, local, and national news, reviews of films and bands, original art, fiction and poetry, and other college-oriented material, notably including "Verbatim," a weekly...
. Remnick has implied that after college he would have wanted to try to write novels, but due to his parents' illnesses, he knew that he would need a paying job — there was no trust fund that was about to kick in. He wanted to be a writer, so he chose a career in journalism, taking a job at the Washington Post. He is married to reporter Esther Fein of 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...
and has three children, Alex, Noah, and Natasha. He enjoys jazz music and classic cinema and is fluent in Russian.
Career at The Washington Post
He began his reporting career at The Washington PostThe Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
in 1982 shortly after his graduation from Princeton. His first assignment was in sports where he covered the United States Football League
United States Football League
The United States Football League was an American football league which was in active operation from 1983 to 1987. It played a spring/summer schedule in its first three seasons and a traditional autumn/winter schedule was set to commence before league operations ceased.The USFL was conceived in...
. After six years, in 1988, he became the newspaper's Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
correspondent, which provided him with the material for his 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...
-winning book, Lenin's Tomb
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire is a bestselling work by David Remnick. Often cited as an example of New Journalism, it won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1994....
. He also received the George Polk
George Polk
George Polk was an American journalist for CBS who disappeared in Greece and was found dead a few days later on Sunday May 16, 1948, shot at point-blank range in the back of the head, and with hands and feet tied. Polk was covering the civil war in Greece between the right wing government and...
Award for excellence in journalism.
Career at The New Yorker
Remnick became a staff writer at The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
in September 1992, after ten years at The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
.
Remnick's 1997 New Yorker article "Kid Dynamite Blows Up," about boxer Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...
, won a National Magazine Award.
In 1998, he became editor, succeeding Tina Brown
Tina Brown
Tina Brown, Lady Evans, CBE , is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. Born a British citizen, she took United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair...
. Remnick promoted Hendrik Hertzberg
Hendrik Hertzberg
Hendrik Hertzberg is an American journalist, best known as the principal political commentator for The New Yorker magazine. He has also been a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and editor of The New Republic, and is the author of ¡Obámanos! The Rise of a New Political Era and Politics:...
, a former Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
speechwriter and former editor of 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...
, to write the lead pieces in “Talk of the Town,” the magazine’s opening section. In 2005, Remnick earned a salary of $1 million per year for his work as editor.
In 2003, he wrote an editorial supporting the Iraq war in the days when it started. In 2004, for the first time in its 80-year history, The New Yorker endorsed a presidential candidate, John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
.
In May 2009 Remnick was featured in a long-form Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
account of Dan Baum's career as a New Yorker staff writer. The tweets, written over the course of a week, described the difficult relationship between Baum and Remnick, his editor.
Remnick's biography of President Barack Obama, The Bridge
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama is a 2010 biography of Barack Obama, written by journalist David Remnick. More than 600 pages long, it concentrates particularly on Obama's rise to power and the presidency of the United States...
, was released on April 6, 2010. It features hundreds of interviews with friends, colleagues and other witnesses to Obama's rise to the presidency of the United States. The book has been widely reviewed in journals.
In 2010, Remnick lent his support to the campaign to release Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani , is an Iranian woman who has gained the attention of human rights groups and people throughout the world for a conviction of adultery and accompanying sentence of death by stoning. Since 2006, she has been imprisoned and under a death sentence in Tabriz, Iran after being...
, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery.
Works
- Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet EmpireLenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet EmpireLenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire is a bestselling work by David Remnick. Often cited as an example of New Journalism, it won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1994....
New York: Random House, 1993. - The Devil Problem: And Other True Stories. New York: Random House, 1996.
- Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia. New York: Random House, 1997.
- King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Random House, 1998.
- Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker. New York: Knopf, 2006.
- The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack ObamaThe Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack ObamaThe Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama is a 2010 biography of Barack Obama, written by journalist David Remnick. More than 600 pages long, it concentrates particularly on Obama's rise to power and the presidency of the United States...
. New York: Knopf, 2010.
Books edited
- Wonderful Town: New York Stories from the New Yorker (with Susan Choi, eds.), 2000.
- The New Gilded Age: The New Yorker Looks at the Culture of Affluence. New York: Random House, 2000.
- Life Stories: Profiles from the New Yorker. New York: Random House, 2000.
- Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from the New Yorker (with Henry Finder, eds.). New York: Random House, 2001.
- Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink. New York: Random House, 2007.
- Disquiet, Please! More Humor Writing from the New Yorker (with Henry Finder, eds.). New York: Random House, 2008.
- The Only Game in Town: Sports Stories from the New Yorker. New York: Random House, 2010.
External links
- David Remnick at The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
- "How to put a legendary magazine back on its feet" Haaretz, Feb. 9, 2006
- David Remnick interview with Big Think
- Interview list
- Interview in British magazine New Statesman