Daniel Mendelsohn
| Daniel Mendelsohn | |
|---|---|
| Born | Daniel Adam Mendelsohn 1960 Long Island, New York, U.S.A. |
| Occupation | Author, journalist, essayist, columnist, college professor |
| Nationality | American |
| Genres | Criticism, Non-fiction |
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www.danielmendelsohn.com |
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Daniel Mendelsohn (born 1960) is an American author and critic.
Contents |
[edit] Life and career
Education. Mendelsohn was born and raised on Long Island, New York; attending public schools in Old Bethpage, New York. He graduated with a B. A. in Classics from the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, VA, which he attended from 1978 to 1982 as an Echols Scholar. Mendelsohn received his M. A. and Ph. D. in Classics from Princeton University, which he attended from 1986 to 1994, and where he was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities.
New York/Charlottesville Interregnum (1982-1985); Other Color. From 1982 to 1985, Mendelsohn resided in New York City, working for opera impresario Joe Scuro.[1] During this period, Mendelsohn dated Dr. Alec Vachon (b. 1951; Given name: Robert Alexander), a clinical psychologist and a health/disability policy expert, whom Mendelsohn described as an important formative influence in a 2011 interview.[1][2] Mendelsohn also comments on that relationship in his 1999 memoir, The Elusive Embrace.[3] In early 1993, Vachon was hired as a senior aide to U.S. Senate Republican leader Bob Dole (KS).[4] Vachon’s Republican Party affiliation prompted Mendelsohn’s July 1993 New York Times Op-Ed satire, “Republicanism Can Be Cured!”,[5] his first work published in a major national publication.[6]
Post-Graduate Careers (1994-Present). Upon completing his Ph.D. in 1994, Mendelsohn began two intertwined careers; one in journalism in New York City, the other in academic research and teaching in the Humanities and the Classics. His review-essays about books, films, theater and television appear frequently in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. Between 2000 and 2002 he was the weekly book critic for New York Magazine, and his work has appeared as well in The New York Times, Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Republic, and many other publications.
Mendelsohn's academic speciality is Greek (especially Euripidean) tragedy; he has also published scholarly articles about Roman poetry and Greek religion. From 1994 to 2002, he was a Lecturer in the Classics department at Princeton University. Currently, he holds the Charles Ranlett Flint Chair in Humanities at Bard College. In April 2008, he was the Richard Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany. In the Spring of 2010, he was a Critic-in-Residence at the American Academy in Rome.
Honors/Professional Recognition. Mendelsohn has been the recipient of numerous honors and professional recognition. In 2005 Mendelsohn was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for a translation of Cavafy's "Unfinished" poems, with commentary. His other honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Book Reviewing (2000) and the George Jean Nathan Prize for Drama Criticism (2002).
Family. Mendelsohn is one of five siblings. His brothers include film director Eric Mendelsohn and photographer Matt Mendelsohn; his sister is journalist Jennifer Mendelsohn.[7] Between March 13, 2000, and March 16, 2000, Daniel, Eric, and Jennifer exchanged 29 e-mails in Slate Magazine's "Breakfast Table: An E-Mail Conversation About the News of the Day" feature. Mendelsohn is single (i.e., never married).
[edit] Books and other writings
Mendelsohn is the author of six books:
- The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity, a memoir entwining themes of gay identity, family history, and Classical myth and literature, was published in 1999 by Alfred A. Knopf, and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. It was published in a French translation as L'étreinte fugitive by Flammarion in January, 2009.
- Gender and the City in Euripides' Political Plays, a scholarly study of Greek tragedy, published by Oxford University Press in 2002, with a paperback edition published in 2005.
- The international bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, the story of the author's worldwide search over five years to learn about the fates of relatives who perished in the Holocaust, was published in the US in September, 2006. The Lost won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir/Autobiography, the National Jewish Book Award for Biography/Autobiography, the Salon Book Award, a Barnes and Noble "Discover" Award, and the American Library Association Sophie Brody Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Literature. Published in over a fifteen countries, it was awarded the 2007 Prix Médicis in France, the 2008 Premio WIZO-ADEI in Italy, and was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize in the UK. It has been optioned for a film adaptation by Ed Pressman Productions, with writer-director Oren Moverman slated to adapt and direct.
- How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken, a collection of his essays on literature and the arts, mostly from The New York Review of Books, was published in August, 2008 and named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2008.
- C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems and C. P. Cavafy: The Unfinished Poems, published simultaneously in March 2009. The latter volume, which is the first English translation of the thirty unfinished drafts that Cavafy left when he died in 1933, is based on the reconstructions of the Italian Neohellenist Renata Lavagnini. Mendelsohn's Cavafy translation was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2009, and was shortlisted for the Criticos Prize. The two-volume hardcover edition will appear as a single-volume paperback, published by Vintage Books, in May 2012.
Mendelsohn's current book-in-progress is entitled, "Odysseys: Adventures in Reading the Greeks".[8]
A complete bibliography of Mendelsohn's published work (including essays and reviews) is available at: http://www.danielmendelsohn.com/
[edit] Interviews and profiles
- Interview with Daniel Mendelsohn on The Elusive Embrace. Bold Type: An Online Literary Magazine, vol. 3.3. June/July 1999
- Interview with Daniel Mendelsohn and Michael Chabon. September 2007
- Chronogram Profile. August 2008
- Audio Interview with Mendelsohn on Constantine Cavafy. November 2008
- Astri von Arbin Ahlander Interview with Daniel Mendelsohn. The Days of Yore. June 2011
[edit] References
- ^ a b Astri von Arbin Ahlander (2011-06-27). “Interview with Daniel Mendelsohn”. The Days of Yore. http://www.thedaysofyore.com/daniel-mendelsohn/ Retrieved 2012-01-19
- ^ In October 1984, Vachon departed for Washington, DC; in March 1985 Mendelsohn returned to Charlottesville, VA, to prep for graduate school. Vachon and Mendelsohn remained in contact (visits, telephone calls, etc.) through Mendelsohn's first year at Princeton (circa 1986-87).
- ^ See pp.100-101; although unnamed, Vachon is identifiable by references to U.S. Senate employment and age.
- ^ See Mendelsohn's memoir, The Elusive Embrace, p. 100. Vachon contacted Mendelsohn for assistance on a paper comparing disability income replacement rates in ancient Athenian and modern American disability income public programs - and discussed his new job with Dole. That paper was presented at the 1993 annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in San Francisco. Mendelsohn is listed as a co-author on the paper abstract in the meeting program book. For Vachon's work with Dole, see: Finding Aid for Robert J. Dole Senate Papers-Personal/Political Files, 1969-1996 | Robert J. Dole Archive and Special Collections http://www2.ku.edu/~archon/cgi-bin/index.php?p=collections/findingaid&id=21&q=&rootcontentid=12553 Retrieved 2012-01-19
- ^ Daniel Mendelsohn (1993-07-26). "Opinion: Republicanism Can Be Cured!". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/26/opinion/republicanism-can-be-cured.html Retrieved 2012-01-19
- ^ For a complete list of the Mendelsohn published oeuvre, see http://www.danielmendelsohn.com/
- ^ Scott Foundas (2010-01-21). "3 Backyards: Secrets and Insides - Page 2 - Film+TV - Los Angeles". LA Weekly. http://www.laweekly.com/2010-01-21/film-tv/3-backyards-secrets-and-insides/2/. Retrieved 2010-12-07. "Mendelsohn was born in 1964 in Old Bethpage, Long Island, the fourth of five children of a scientist father (who designed target-recognition technology for F14 aircraft at Grumman Aerospace) and teacher mother. His siblings include a photographer, a physicist, journalist Jennifer Mendelsohn and critic and author Daniel Mendelsohn, whose best-selling, Holocaust-themed memoir, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, is currently being developed as a film by Jean-Luc Godard."
- ^ http://apaclassics.org/index.php/apa_blog/apa_blog_entry/a_father-son_odyssey_with_daniel_mendelsohn/ Retrieved 2012-01-23
