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Jonathan Franzen

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Jonathan Franzen

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Also known as Jonathan Earl Franzen

American writer

OverviewAI-generated

Jonathan Franzen is an American novelist, writer, essayist, and opinion journalist who has worked in New York City since 1988. Born in Western Springs on August 17, 1959, he holds United States citizenship and writes in English. His notable works include *The Corrections* and *Freedom*. Franzen has received several awards, including the National Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an honorary degree. He has written for *The New Yorker* and is a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Franzen was educated at Swarthmore College and Freie Universität Berlin. He speaks both German and English. His literary influences include Henrik Ibsen, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, and Alice Munro. He has also mentored students such as Rachel Kushner.

Synthesized by Vinony from 39 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Wikiquote, Open Library, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
August 17, 1959
Works
127

Top works

  • The Peanuts Papers
  • The Twenty-Seventh City (Bestselling Backlist)
  • How to Be Alone
  • אזור אי־הנוחות
  • Corrections Reading Group Guide

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting

Known for

  • Watching People Watching Birds — Himself2026
  • Le cri du rhinocéros — Self2018
  • Ferrante Fever2017
  • Sjöwall & Wahlöö - Berättelsen om ett brott — Self2016
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — Self2015
  • Philip Roth: Unmasked — Himself2013
  • Revenge of the Mekons — Self2013
  • Birders: The Central Park Effect — Himself2012
  • Skavlan — Self - Guest2009
  • maybrit illner — Self1999

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
United States
Active from
1959

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
779
Total plays
20,029

Jonathan Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections (2001), a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His most recent novel is Freedom, published in August 2010. Franzen writes for The New Yorker magazine. He is also known for his 1996 Harper's essay "Perchance to Dream" bemoaning the state of literature <a href=

via Last.fm · Jonathan Franzen

Quotes

  • ... idea of what books and literature are for ... serious fiction ... It is for people who may be a little isolated ... may be isolated by the very fact that they like to read books. And that my job really is to participate in that community and make that human connection. So, I went from trying to impress people or change them ... to just trying to make that connection.
  • One of the consolations of dying... Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I don't see how you could stand it psychologically.
  • Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular.
  • An ink bottle, which now seems impossibly quaint, was still thinkable as a symbol in 1970.
  • Today's Baudelaires are hip-hop artists.
  • A lack of desire to spend money becomes a symptom of disease that requires expensive medication. Which medication then destroys the libido, in other words destroys the appetite for the one pleasure in life that's free, which means the person has to spend even more money on compensatory pleasures. The very definition of mental 'health' is the ability to participate in the consumer economy. When you buy into therapy, you're buying into buying.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
Jonathan Earl Franzen , ( 1959-08-17 ) August 17, 1959 (age 66) , Western Springs, Illinois , U.S.
Occupation
Novelist, essayist
Education
Swarthmore College ( BA )
Genre
Literary fiction
Literary movement
Social realism , New Sincerity
Notable works
The Corrections (2001), Freedom (2010), Crossroads (2021)
Notable awards
National Book Award , 2001 , James Tait Black Memorial Prize , 2002
Spouse
Valerie Cornell ​ ( divorced ) ​
Partner
Kathy Chetkovich

via Wikipedia infobox

~30 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel Crossroads was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy.

Franzen has contributed to The New Yorker magazine since 1994. His 1996 Harper's essay "Perchance to Dream" bemoaned the state of contemporary literature. Oprah Winfrey's book club selection in 2001 of The Corrections led to a much publicized feud with the talk show host.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Jonathan Franzen” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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