Paul West is a novelist and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

. He was born in Eckington, Derbyshire

Eckington, Derbyshire

Eckington is a town in North East Derbyshire, 7 miles north of Chesterfield and 8.5 miles south of Sheffield on the border with South Yorkshire.Eckington has a population of 11,152....

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 to Alfred and Mildred (Noden) West. Currently, he resides in upstate New York

Upstate New York

Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...

 with his wife Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman is an American author, poet, and naturalist known best for her work A Natural History of the Senses. Her writing style, referring to her best-selling natural history books, can best be described as a blend of poetry, colloquial history, and easy-reading science...

, a writer, poet, and naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

. West is the author of twenty-four novels. "He has published poetry, criticism, essays, memoirs (including an extended, sometimes hilarious meditation on learning to swim in middle age) and...novels of an unsettling nonuniformity."

Early life

West grew up amongst a family that loved books and considered the written word to be sacred. This love of books pushed him to gain a diverse education through his studies at Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and Columbia Universities

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...

.

Awards

West's literary craft has earned him the American Academy of Arts and Letters

The American Academy of Arts and Letters

The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member honor society; its goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Located in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan in New York, it shares Audubon Terrace, its Beaux Arts campus on...

 Literature Award (1985), the Lannan Prize

Lannan Literary Awards

The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional quality", according to the foundation...

 for Fiction (1993), the Grand Prix Halperine-Kaminsky Award (1993), and three Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

s (1987, 1991, 2003). West is also a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, a 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...

 Literary Lion (1987), and a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et Lettres, 1996, France).

Analysis

West has an eclectic style. Common themes from his works include psychic abuse, failed relationships, and societal inadequacy. However, there is a strong sense of self-discovery and survival amongst these themes. His works are an outpouring on his view of the human condition. In an interview with David W. Madden, Mr. West remarked that he always listens to some kind of classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 while writing and composes all of his works using a typewriter

Typewriter

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

. The revision process is fascinating for him and one he laboriously proceeds through with each literary piece.

West and his novel, The Very Rich Hours of Count von Stauffenberg, figure prominently in a chapter in Nobel Laureate

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

 J. M. Coetzee's book Elizabeth Costello

Elizabeth Costello

Elizabeth Costello is a 2003 novel by South African-born Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee.In this novel, Elizabeth Costello, an aging Australian writer, travels around the world and gives lectures on topics including the lives of animals and literary censorship...

. Coetzee's title character is so disturbed by the horrors West describes in his book that she questions, in a lecture given at a conference in Amsterdam on evil, whether a writer can immerse themselves in such darkness without suffering some sort of personal harm. West, unbeknownst to Costello until only hours before her very pointed lecture, is also attending the conference.

Personal life

In 2003, West had a stroke, which his wife, Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman is an American author, poet, and naturalist known best for her work A Natural History of the Senses. Her writing style, referring to her best-selling natural history books, can best be described as a blend of poetry, colloquial history, and easy-reading science...

, has written about in her book "One Hundred Names
for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage and the Language of Healing."

Long fiction

• A Quality of Mercy, 1961
• Tenement of Clay, 1965
• Alley Jaggers, 1966
• I'm Expecting to Live Quite Soon, 1970
• Caliban's Filibuster, 1971
• Bela Lugosi's White Christmas, 1972
• Colonel Mint, 1972
• Gala, 1976
• The Very Rich Hours of Count von Stauffenberg, 1980
• Rat Man of Paris, 1986
• The Place in Flowers, Where Pollen Rests, 1988
• Lord Byron's Doctor, 1989
• The Women of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper, 1991
• Love's Mansion, 1992
• The Tent of Orange Mist, 1995
• Sporting with Amaryllis, 1996
• Life With Swan, 1997
• Terrestrials, 1997
• OK: The Corral, the Earps and Doc Holliday, 2000
• The Dry Danube: A Hitler Forgery, 2000
• A Fifth of November, 2001
• Cheops: A Cupboard for the Sun, 2002
• The Immensity of the Here and Now: A Novel of 9.11, 2003

Poetry

• Poems, 1952
• The Spellbound Horses, 1960
• The Snow Leopard, 1964
• Alphabet Poetry
• Tea with Osiris, 2006

Non-fiction

• The Growth of the Novel, 1959
• Byron and the Spoiler's Art, 1960 – 2nd ed. 1992
• I, Said the Sparrow, 1963
• The Modern Novel, 1963
• Robert Penn Warren, 1964
• The Wine of Absurdity: Essays in Literature and Consolation, 1966
• Words for a Deaf Daughter, 1969
• Out of My Depths: A Swimmer in the Universe, 1983
• Sheer Fiction, 1987
• Portable People, 1990
• Sheer Fiction, vol. 2, 1991
• Sheer Fiction, vol. 3, 1994
• James Ensor, 1991
• My Mother's Music, 1996
• A Stroke of Genius: Illness and Self-Discovery, 1995
• The Secret Lives of Words, 2000
• Master Class, Scenes From A Fiction Workshop, 2001
• Oxford Days, 2002
• Sheer Fiction, vol. 4, 2004
• My Father's War, 2005
• The Shadow Factory, 2008

External links

• "Word Patriots--Paul West Early Years" November 2011 radio program/podcast discussing West's early work; hosted by Mark Seinfelt.
• "An Interview With Paul West", David W. Madden. A 1989 interview
• Brief biography from Answers.com
• 'Mem, Mem, Mem' After a stroke, West struggles to say how the mental world of aphasia
  Aphasia
  Aphasia is an impairment of language ability. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write....
  
   looks and feels. According to his wife Diane Ackerman
  Diane Ackerman
  Diane Ackerman is an American author, poet, and naturalist known best for her work A Natural History of the Senses. Her writing style, referring to her best-selling natural history books, can best be described as a blend of poetry, colloquial history, and easy-reading science...
  
  : "this is an excerpt from The Shadow Factory, the aphasic memoir West dictated with such struggle and resolve, 'forcing language back on itself.' "
• "The Paul West Experience - Liberating the Microcosms" An homage from former student Edward Desautels, delivered at the 4th Biennial &Now Festival of Innovative Writing & the Literary Arts, 2009, Buffalo, NY as part of the panel "Purple Mind: A Paul West Panel."