Bruce Benderson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bruce Benderson (born August 6, 1946) is an American author who lives in New York. He was a contemporary of Camille Paglia at William Nottingham High School (1964) in Syracuse, New York and then Binghamton University (1968). He is today a novelist and essayist, widely published in France, less so in the United States. His book-length essay, Toward the New Degeneracy (1997), looks at New York’s Times Square, where rich and poor once mixed in a lively atmosphere of drugs, sex, and commerce. Benderson argues that this kind of mingling of classes has been the source of many modern avant-garde movements, and he laments the disappearance of that particular milieu. His novel User (1994) is a lyrical descent into the world of junkies and male hustlers. He is also the author of James Bidgood (Taschen, 1999), about the maker of the cult film Pink Narcissus. Benderson has been published in Between C & D, 3:AM Magazine, American Letters and Commentary, Men on Men and Flesh and the Word. He is also a journalist who has written on squatters for the New York Times Magazine, boxing for the Village Voice, unusual shelters for nest, and books and personalities for various publications, including Out, The Stranger, New York Press, BlackBook, and Paper. He has translated several books of French origin, including Virginie Despentes' novel Baise Moi (which was later adapated into a controversial film); the writers Robbe-Grillet, Pierre Guyotat, Sollers and Nelly Arcan; and, though it is quite far away from his usual subject matter, a biography of Celine Dion. In 2007, his translation of Tony Duvert's "Le bon sexe illustré" (Good Sex Illustrated) will be released by Semiotext(e).
In 2004, his erotic memoir Autobiographie erotique, about a nine-month sojourn in Romania, won the prestigious French literary prize, the Prix de Flore. The book was published in the United States (Tarcher/Penguin) and the United Kingdom (Snow Books) in 2006 under the title The Romanian: Story of an Obsession. A book-length essay, "Sexe et Solitude," about the extinction of urban space and the rise of the Internet, was published in French in 1999. A collection of essays, published under the title "Attitudes," appeared in French in 2006. These essays, along with "Sexe et Solitude" and "Toward the New Degeneracy" are currently being prepared for American publication in a nonfiction anthology of Benderson's writings entitled "Sex and Isolation" (U. of Wisconsin Press, 2007) The year 2007 will also see the publication by both French (Editions Payot & Rivages) and American (Clearcut Press) publishers of a new novel by Benderson called "Pacific Agony," a caustic satire of life in America's Pacific Northwest.
Benderson is the literary executor of the deceased novelist, Ursule Molinaro. He is mentioned in Frédéric Beigbeder's most recent book, Windows on the World. In 2006, he became a publishing associate at Virgin Books USA.
