Mark Helprin
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Mark Helprin (born on June 28, 1947) is an award-winning American novelist, journalist, and conservative commentator.
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[edit] Background
Helprin was raised on the Hudson River and in the British West Indies, and holds degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His postgraduate work was done at the University of Oxford. He served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force.
[edit] Novels and short stories
His first novel, published in 1977, was Refiner’s Fire: The Life and Adventures of Marshall Pearl, a Foundling. Winter’s Tale (1983) is a sometimes fantastic tale of early 20th century life in New York City. In 1991, he published A Soldier of the Great War. Memoir from Antproof Case, published in 1995, includes a long comic diatribe against the effects of coffee. Helprin came out with Freddy and Fredericka, a critically acclaimed satire, in 2005.
Helprin has published three books of short stories: A Dove of the East & Other Stories (1975), Ellis Island & Other Stories (1981), and The Pacific And Other Stories (2004). He has also written three children’s books, all of which are illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg: Swan Lake, The Veil of Snows, and A City In Winter. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
[edit] Periodicals
Helprin's writing has appeared in The New Yorker for two decades. He writes essays and a column for the Claremont Review of Books. His writings, including political op-eds, have also appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, National Review, The American Heritage, The Wall Street Journal (for which he was a contributing editor until 2006), The New York Times, and other publications.
On May 20, 2007, Helprin published an op-ed for the The New York Times that argued that intellectual property rights should be assigned to an author or artist as far as Congress could practically extend it.[1] The response to his position on the blogosphere and elsewhere was reported on the New York Times's blog the next day. [2]
[edit] Honors and accomplishments
A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Helprin has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award and the Prix de Rome from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
He is also a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. In 1996 he served as a foreign policy advisor and speechwriter to presidential candidate Bob Dole.
In May 2006, the New York Times Book Review published a list of American novels, compiled from the responses to "a short letter [from the review] to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.'" Among the twenty-two books to have received multiple votes was Helprin's Winter's Tale.
In 2006 Helprin was awarded the Tulsa Library Trust's Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.
[edit] Works
- A Dove of the East and Other Stories (1975)
- Refiner's Fire (1977)
- Ellis Island and Other Stories (1981)
- Winter's Tale (1983)
- Swan Lake (1989)
- A Soldier of the Great War (1991)
- Memoir From Antproof Case (1995)
- A City In Winter (1996)
- The Veil of Snows (1997)
- The Pacific and Other Stories (2004)
- Freddy and Fredericka (2005)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Mark Helprin. "A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?", The New York Times, May 20, 2007.
- ^ Mike Nizza. "To the Editor: Please See Wiki", The Lede, blog of The New York Times, May 21, 2007.
[edit] External links
