David Remnick

David Remnick
Remnick at the New Yorker conference, May 9, 2008
Born	(1958-10-29) October 29, 1958 Hackensack, New Jersey
Occupation	Magazine editor, journalist, writer and editor
Title	Editor-in-chief of The New Yorker
Spouse(s)	Esther Fein (3 children)

David Remnick (born October 29, 1958) 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.

Early life and family

Remnick was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, the son of a dentist, Edward C. Remnick, and an art teacher, Barbara (Seigel). 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 in 1981 with an A.B. in comparative literature; there, he met writer John McPhee and helped found The Nassau Weekly. Remnick has implied that after college he wanted to write novels, but due to his parents' illnesses, he needed a paying job—there was no trust fund to rely upon. Remnick 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.

Career at The Washington Post

He began his reporting career at The Washington Post in 1982 shortly after his graduation from Princeton. His first assignment was to cover 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.

Career at The New Yorker

Remnick became a staff writer at The New Yorker in September, 1992, after ten years at The Washington Post.

Remnick's 1997 New Yorker article, "Kid Dynamite Blows Up", about boxer Mike Tyson, was nominated for 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 $1 million for his work as the magazine's 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 urging the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery.

Works

• Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire 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 Obama. 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.

Selected Articles

• Remnick, David (January 12, 2009). "Talk of the Town: Comment: Homelands". The New Yorker 84 (44): 17–18. Retrieved March 27, 2009. 
• Remnick, David (September 28, 2009). "Talk of the Town: The Blotter: Blago Speaks. Again". The New Yorker 85 (30): 22–23. Retrieved February 22, 2010. 
• Remnick, David (January 21, 2013). "The Party Faithful". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 17, 2013. 
• Remnick, David (March 18, 2013). "Danse Macabre: A Scandal at the Bolshoi Ballet". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 17, 2013. 

External links

• David Remnick at The New Yorker
• "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
• Booknotes interview with Remnick on Lenin's Tomb, July 25, 1993

Preceded by Tina Brown

Editor of The New Yorker 1998–

Succeeded by Incumbent