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Jonathan Safran Foer was
born in the splendid year of 1977, in Washington D.C. He was educated at
Georgetown Day School, a private high school. Around this time, he wanted to be
a brain surgeon, and one could argue that his fiction does indeed mess up your
mind. He claims to have been the tallest person in his neighbourhood, yet he is
apparently now of average height. Although brought up in all the trappings, he
was never much moved by Jewish tradition, despite being drawn to the works of
Jewish authors such as David Grossman, Phillip Roth and Bellow. When Jonathan
was a child, he would visit his grandmother’s house, where he was would be
hauled into the air for a hug upon arriving and leaving. Only later did he
realise that his grandmother had been weighing rather than hugging him, an
unconscious reflex action left over from the Holocaust. While at a summer camp
aged 8, he was one of several victims of an explosion from a botched attempt to
make sparklers. This caused some trauma for him that has affected his later
writing. He went to Princeton as a philosophy major, where he looks to have won
all the Writing Thesis Prizes. One of his teachers, and his mentor, was the
novelist Joyce Carol Oates. He won the Zoetrope All Fiction Story Prize in
2000. Jonathan called on his professors for assistance as he sought entries
from established writers for “Convergence of Birds” (2001), his homage to the
dioramas of Joseph Cornell. It was in 1999 that he made his legendary trip to
the Ukraine, on a mission to find the woman who saved his grandfather’s life
during the Second World War. He did not find her, but he did discover a plague
relating the destruction of the shetl of Trachimbrod, and the tale of a
drowning in the Brod River. And so his first novel, “Everything is Illuminated”
(2002), was born. It was a difficult birth, as 6 agents rejected it, and none
of the publishers in New York were interested when it was first submitted.
Although the novel’s main character was called “Jonathan Safran Foer”, his
journey to the Ukraine only formed the foundations of the novel. It tells of
Brod and Trachimbrod, the mad squire Sofiowka, the Kolker, the Wisps of
Ardisht, Greenwich Shtetl, and many famous nightclubs. “The Very Rigid Search”,
an extract from the novel, was published in “The New Yorker” in 2001.
“Everything is Illuminated” garnered a lot of praise, and Jonathan won The
Guardian First Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and it was named Book
of the Year by the Los Angeles Times. The movie of the novel is due to be
released in September 2005, and stars Elijah Wood. Jonathan’s second novel,
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, was released in 2005. It relates
9-year-old Oskar Schell’s reaction to the events of 9/11. 2005 also saw
Jonathan writing a libretto for an opera called “Seven Attempted Escapes from
Silence”, which premiered in Berlin in September. Jonathan’s brother, Franklin
Foer, is a senior editor at The New Republic. Jonathan Safran Foer has made a
short film called “If this is
Kosher” against the slaughter practices of modern factory, which he
considers to be outside of the spirit of the kosher laws. Jonathan Safran Foer
lives in Brooklyn with a Great Dane called George, and his wife, the novelist
Nicole Krauss.
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About
the typefaces not used in this edition - is another short story by
Jonathan Safran Foer - I was disappointed to see that Jonathan had missed out
the Ovine, Variable
Point
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Recent Grad's first novel attracts
attention - Regina
Tan interviews Foer
A Convergence of
Birds -
Foer edited this homage to Joseph Cornell
Debutante
Fiction -
John Wilson seems less than impressed with new writers like Foer. The
short story of Foer's in this collection sounds uncannily like Everything
is Illuminated
Jonathan
Safran Foer -
this website mentions that Foer's second novel was to be called Pictures at an
Exhibition
The
Eighteen Days -
an introductory note about the jottings of Isaac Bashevis Singer by Foer
The Project Museum - visit
Jonathan Safran Foer's homepage, which is stylish if ultimately devoid of any
useful content
Voyage
of Discovery - Oliver Burkeman talks to Jonathan Safran Foer just
after the young author has won The Guardian First Book Award
Perhaps
my critics are jealous of me - or perhaps Everything
is Illuminated takes a little getting used to - Jonathan Safran Foer talks
to Julia Llewellyn Smith
First
Time Author of the Month - reveals that Jonathan Safran Foer's second
novel was to be called The Zelnik Musuem. There was also a book title on
Amazon.co.uk under Jonathan Safran Foer's name called "I'm Okay"
Young
Author Foer '99 illuminates his place in the literary world - Julie
Kestenman gives us an idea of what Foer's time at Princeton was like
Rising
Literary Celebrity Foer '99 makes return visit to campus - in which
Jonathan Safran Foer reveals that he was not able to write much whilst spending
so much time publicising Everything
is Illuminated
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“The Escapist: fantasy, folklore, and the pleasures of the
comic book in recent Jewish American Holocaust fiction” by Lee Behlman in
Shofar March 2004.
Fruitful
to the Original – Week One of John Mullan’s examination of “Everything is
Illuminated” looks at malapropisms in the novel
The
Name Game – in Week Two, John Mullan looks at the author in the novel
Light
Fantastic – John Mullan looks at “magical realism” in “Everything is
Illuminated”
He said, She said – John Mullan concludes by looking at direct speech in the novel
