Benjamin Kunkel

Benjamin Kunkel
Born (1972-12-14) December 14, 1972
Colorado
Occupation Editor, writer
Nationality American
Alma mater Harvard University
Columbia University

Benjamin Kunkel (born December 14, 1972 in Colorado) is an American novelist. He co-founded and is a co-editor of the journal n+1. His novel, Indecision, was published in 2005.

Background and education

Kunkel grew up in Eagle, Colorado, and was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire; Kunkel studied at Deep Springs College in California, graduated with an A.B. from Harvard University, and received his MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University. Kunkel has two siblings.

Career

In addition to regularly writing for The New York Times, Kunkel has written for the magazines Dissent, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, The Believer, and The New Yorker.

Indecision

Indecision was published by Random House in 2005. In a front-page review in the New York Times Book Review, Jay McInerney dubbed it "the funniest and smartest coming-of-age novel in years," but only after Michiko Kakutani's odd, ambiguous review written completely in the voice of Holden Caulfield.

In an interview on NPR, Kunkel was asked if he was articulating a generational problem with the novel. He responded

Well, it's obviously not an affliction for everybody in the world, it's only a small segment of the world. But I think for a number of people of my generation, there's been an explosion of freedom without any sort of similar capacity to handle the opportunities that spread themselves before us.

Indecision begins with the acknowledgment, "For n+1." Kunkel has written two short stories and one book review for the print journal he started with friends from college and graduate school. In the Fall 2004 issue, he published the short story "Horse Mountain," about an aging man. In the Spring 2005 issue, he published a review of J.M. Coetzee's works, imitating Coetzee's recent novel Elizabeth Costello. In the Fall 2005 issue, he published a short story "Or Things I Did Not Do or Say," about a man determined to kill another man.

References

    Further reading

    External links

    Writings and interviews

    Archives of his articles for other magazines

    Reviews

    Interviews and reading

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