Wendy Lesser is an American critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

, novelist, and editor

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

 based in Berkeley, California

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

.

Lesser did her undergraduate work at Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

 and her graduate work at University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, with time in between at King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

. She is the founding editor of the arts journal The Threepenny Review

The Threepenny Review

The Threepenny Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1980. It is published in Berkeley, California by founding editor Wendy Lesser. Maintaining a quarterly schedule , it offers fiction, memoirs, poetry, essays and criticism to a readership of 10,000...

, and author of nine books, including her first novel, The Pagoda in the Garden (Other Press, 2005), and her latest nonfiction book, Music for Silenced Voices (Yale, 2011).

She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

, and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...

, National Endowment for the Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

, and 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 Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Works

• The Life Below the Ground: A Study of the Subterranean in Literature and History (1987)
• His Other Half: Men Looking at Women Through Art (1991)
• Pictures at an Execution (1994)
• A Director Calls (1997)
• The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters (1999)
• Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering (2002)
• The Pagoda in the Garden (2005)
• Room for Doubt (2007)
• Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets (2011)

External links

• Other Press
• The Threepenny Review
• Freeze framed: Wendy Lesser's essays break emotional ice, review of Room for Doubt by Emily Weinstein at The Village Voice
  The Village Voice
  The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
  
  
• Random House: Wendy Lesser
• Films42 feature: Wendy Lesser