Douglas Anthony Cooper
Encyclopedia
Douglas Anthony Cooper is a writer
originally from Canada
, who lived for many years in New York City
and currently resides in Oaxaca
, Mexico
. He trained in philosophy and architecture, and these are the areas that dominate his novels, which are generally placed in the category of postmodern fiction. Michiko Kakutani
in The New York Times
wrote that his "elliptical narrative style recalls works by D. M. Thomas
, Paul Auster
, Sam Shepard
and Vladimir Nabokov
."
Cooper often works with architects, including a number of projects around the world with Diller + Scofidio
involving new media. His works with Diller + Scofidio include a landscape piece at the 2002 World's Fair in Switzerland
and "Chain City", a video installation at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture
. He also partnered with Peter Eisenman
on a major piece for the Architecture Triennial in Milan: an installation based on Cooper's second novel, Delirium.
Cooper has written travel articles for many publications and was associated for years with New York Magazine. In 2004 he won America's most prestigious travel writing
award, the Lowell Thomas
Gold Medal, from the Society of American Travel Writers.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
originally from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, who lived for many years in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and currently resides in Oaxaca
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
The city and municipality of Oaxaca de Juárez, or simply Oaxaca, is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of the same name . It is located in the Centro District in the Central Valleys region of the state, in the foothills of the Sierra Madre at the base of the Cerro del Fortín...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. He trained in philosophy and architecture, and these are the areas that dominate his novels, which are generally placed in the category of postmodern fiction. Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani
is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times and is considered by many to be a leading literary critic in the United States.-Life and career:...
in 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...
wrote that his "elliptical narrative style recalls works by D. M. Thomas
D. M. Thomas
Donald Michael Thomas, known as D. M. Thomas , is a Cornish novelist, poet, and translator.Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, UK. He attended Trewirgie Primary School and Redruth Grammar School before graduating with First Class Honours in English from New College, Oxford in 1959...
, Paul Auster
Paul Auster
Paul 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...
, Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
and 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...
."
Cooper often works with architects, including a number of projects around the world with Diller + Scofidio
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Diller Scofidio + Renfro is a New York City-based interdisciplinary design studio that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts. Originally founded by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio in 1979, the firm is particularly well known for its interdisciplinary approach to...
involving new media. His works with Diller + Scofidio include a landscape piece at the 2002 World's Fair in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and "Chain City", a video installation at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture
Venice Biennale of architecture
Mostra di Architettura di Venezia, the Architecture section of the Venice Biennale, was established in 1980, although architecture had been a part of the art biennale since 1968....
. He also partnered with Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
on a major piece for the Architecture Triennial in Milan: an installation based on Cooper's second novel, Delirium.
Cooper has written travel articles for many publications and was associated for years with New York Magazine. In 2004 he won America's most prestigious travel writing
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
award, the Lowell Thomas
Lowell Thomas
Lowell Jackson Thomas was an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous...
Gold Medal, from the Society of American Travel Writers.
Novels
- AmnesiaAmnesia (novel)Amnesia , the first novel by Douglas Anthony Cooper, chronicles the unraveling of a Toronto family and the amnesiac girl who undoes its scion, Izzy Darlow...
(1992), Cooper's first novel, is a postmodern addition to the genre of architectural fiction. It chronicles the unraveling of a Toronto family and the amnesiac girl who undoes its scion, Izzy Darlow. The novel is obsessive and fragmentary - a structurally complex work opposing the manic power of Eros to the compulsive need to forget. Cooper deals with memory theory throughout the novel, and emphasizes its relationship to classical rhetoric. He studied Latin rhetoric, and was a serious competitive debater in college - he was Canadian National ChampionCanadian National Debating ChampionshipThe Canadian National Debating Championship is the premier university debating championship in Canada, sanctioned by the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate. It has been held since 1978, always in the Canadian parliamentary debating style...
in 1985, and Runner-Up Best Speaker at the 1985 World ChampionshipsWorld Universities Debating ChampionshipThe World Universities Debating Championship is the world's largest debating tournament, and one of the largest annual international student events in the world. It is a parliamentary debating event, held using the British Parliamentary Debate format. Each year, the event is hosted by a university...
. Amnesia gained a following among architecture students and academic theorists, and Cooper has been deeply involved in the architectural community as an artistic collaborator.
- Delirium (1998), the second Izzy Darlow novel, follows the character to Manhattan, where he is a writer. Darlow is slowly unspooling the story of Ariel Price, an architect who vows to murder his biographer. The experiment in architectural structure initiated by Amnesia becomes even more complex and ambitious, in line with the monstrous projects designed by Ariel Price. The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe 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...
observed that Cooper "invents an underground city of the dead and the disenfranchised that suggests the night visions in The Crying of Lot 49The Crying of Lot 49The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by Thomas Pynchon, first published in 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, it is about a woman, Oedipa Maas, possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies, Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero...
" (by Thomas PynchonThomas PynchonThomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
). The novel deals with problems of narrative itself, and in particular a person's will to control his or her story, even after death. As with Amnesia, Delirium addresses the nature of horror, and of the impossible drive to redeem the broken human spirit. Delirium is widely recognized as the first novel serialized on the World Wide Web. It was published by Time WarnerTime WarnerTime Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
Electronic Publishing (TWEP), a pioneering effort to create online content.
- Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional HelpMilrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help (novel)Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help is the first young adult novel by Douglas Anthony Cooper and his third book overall. In it, teenaged Milrose and his friend Arabella can see the ghosts that inhabit their school...
is a gothic novel for young adults about a pair of flamboyant teenagers who can see ghosts, and their battle with the school psychologist who is set on convincing them that they cannot. It is a dark comic look at the tactics of guidance counselors and juvenile psychiatrists.
- Milrose Munce and the Plague of the Toxic Fungus is Cooper's second Milrose Munce novel for young adults. Considerably darker than Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help, it also demonstrates Cooper's phenomenal ability to find humor in even the strangest circumstances and again gives range to the sarcastic adolescent voice.
External links
- An Overview of The Dysarchitecture of Douglas Cooper - Critical Essay by Nancy Costigan
- Reviews of Douglas Anthony Cooper's Novels
- Canadian Gothic - Travel Essay Collected in Best American Travel Writing 2004, ed. Pico Ayer
- Dysmedia - Cooper's Home Page
- The Climber's Choice - Short story by Cooper on New Partisan
- A Book to Damage Children - Cooper discusses Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help