Biblio Award Winner Better than His Promise

November 13th, 2013

Atlas Explores Biography and a Biographer’s Life—His Own

October 12th, 2013

Atlas’s stint at the New York Times included his editing its book review section.

Studying the craft of biography and the biographers who have shaped it, writing biographies, editing and publishing the works of other biographers: In a career that has spanned almost 40 years, James Atlas has done it all, along with working as an editor for the New York Times and a writer for many other major periodicals.

Now, Atlas is making news in the world of biography again, serving as the editor for Amazon’s new Icons series of short-form biographies. The initial run of twelve titles, available both electronically and in hard cover from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, will debut this December with Jay Parini’s Jesus: The Human Face of God.

Atlas is also at work on The Shadow in the Garden, a book that explores his relationship to the craft of biography. It’s a memoir of sorts, but as Atlas told TBC, readers won’t find much about his career or personal life. Instead, Atlas said, “What I really wanted to do was write a story, a picaresque tale” that blends his experiences as a biographer with “an account of how I learned what biography is.”

The Ins and Outs of Icons

The exploration of his own life as a biographer will be full length; Atlas said he’s written 100,000 words. Now, his agent instructed him, “You can put in different words, but you can’t put in more words.” Atlas hopes to finish the book this year.

It’s the short-form bio, however, that has made Atlas a prominent publishing figure. He created the Penguin Lives series while at that publishing house, then edited the similar Eminent Lives series for HarperCollins. He also founded his own company that published short biographies, as well as other genres. As in those past ventures, Altas is using Icons to pair prominent writers from various disciplines with famous subjects.

Amazon says the books focus on “canonical figures in the culture, both historical and contemporary.” Although originally slated to come in at 25,000 words, many of the Icons titles are closer to 45,000 to 50,000 words. Atlas sees that as a good thing: “They’re really substantial books, books as we know them and love them.”

The first round of books include titles on such decidedly major figures as Joseph Stalin, J. D. Salinger, Vincent Van Gogh, and Ernest Hemingway. A somewhat more surprising figure may be filmmaker David Lynch, but Atlas said that choice reflects his desire to include influential contemporary figures from a variety of fields. Overall, Atlas sad he wanted figures “who are recognizable and yet who we can learn about and learn from.”

As for choosing the writers and their subjects, Atlas uses a process that served him well with Penguin Lives and Eminent Lives. He said he selects writers “whose work I admire and who will be galvanized by a subject.” Then, through conversations, he and the writers decide who would be the best subject. “That’s one of the most exciting things about it, this sort of psychiatric element,” he said. “We’re going to lay the writer down on the couch and figure out who interests him or her. That’s part of the creative dynamic of it.”

A press account in the Atlantic Wire announcing the debut of Icons noted that the initial list of authors had only two women—including BIO board member Anne Heller, who will write about the only female subject, Hannah Arendt. Atlas told the Atlantic Wire that two more women biographers were under contract. One of them is BIO member Megan Marshall, who will be writing about poet Elizabeth Bishop.

Biographers and Shadows

Returning to his memoir, Atlas said his notes for the project go back to at least 1995. The title came from the subject of Atlas’s last biography, Saul Bellow. How the title emerged in Atlas’s notes and what Bellow actually wrote, Atlas said, “already leads me into some of the dilemmas of writing biography.” Atlas remembered that, “Bellow described the biographer as the shadow in the garden… but looking again over my journals I found that he said the biographer was the shadow of the tombstone in the garden. So before you even open the book, we’re in troubled waters here.”

The Shadow in the Garden will trace Atlas’s years studying at Oxford with Richard Ellman, the biographer of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde, among others; the experience writing his first biography, about Delmore Schwartz; and the ten years he devoted to his study of Bellow. He will also look at the biography he didn’t write, about Edmund Wilson. Folded into that is his study of the craft of biography, including a brief look at its history. But the focus he said, is on “the way I actually studied and read about biography,” delving into his experience with such classics as Michael Holroyd’s work on Lytton Strachey. “All of that,” Atlas said, “is told in the form of a story, because one of the things that attract me to biography is that it is a story. And you can create a book that is as complicated and dense with literary style as any novel.” Atlas hopes his story is an entertaining one: “I want it to be a fun book to read.”

Given all that he’s accomplished as a writer and publisher, how does Atlas ultimately define himself? He said, “In terms of my actual trade, and profession, I am a biographer.”

Planning for 2014 Compleat Biographer Conference Underway

October 12th, 2013

The scenic waterfront campus of UMass Boston will once again host the Compleat Biographer Conference.

The Program and Site Committees have begun their work on putting together the 2014 Compleat Biographer Conference that will be held in Boston on May 16-18. Returning to the campus of the University of Massachusetts Boston will be special, said James McGrath Morris, BIO President. “This will mark our fifth conference and the fifth anniversary of the formal establishment of Biographers International Organization. All of which took place on the campus.”

As with past conferences, Friday, May 16, will be devoted to research workshops at archives, libraries, and historical societies around the Boston area, with a reception in the evening. The actual conference will take place on Saturday, May 17, and a series of master classes will be offered on Sunday, May 18.

Hosting the event, which means dealing with endless and complicated logistics, will be members of the Boston Biographers Group who have agreed to serve on the Compleat Biographer Conference Site Committee. Already they secured the conference site as well as a place for the popular conference eve function, according to Ray A. Shepard, the committee’s chair.

The conference will also witness the fourth transition of leadership. In 2010, when BIO was established, Debby Applegate served as its first president. Her term was followed by that of Nigel Hamilton who served as president from 2010-2012. Morris was elected in 2012 and his term ends in 2014.

“I’m planning on taking a year away from BIO, remaining an active member, and running in 2015 for a position on the board,” Morris said.

Awards to be bestowed during the conference include the Biblio Award, the BIO Award, and the Plutarch. In addition the conference will witness the first awarding of the Hazel Rowley Prize for Best Proposal for a First Biography.

In the meantime, past conference attendees should watch their mail for a survey that will help guide the Compleat Biographer 2014 Program Committee members in planning this year’s conference. The committee members are:

• Cathy Curtis, chair
• Kate Buford
• Greg Daugherty
• Deirdre David
• Beverly Gray
• Anne Heller
• Brian Jay Jones
• Josh Kendall
• Mark Leepson
• Ray A. Shepard
• Bill Souder
• Will Swift

Media Flap Over Zealot Boosts Sales, Raises Questions

September 9th, 2013

Aslan’s previous book was an updated edition of his No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.

Reza Aslan seems to have found the perfect formula for rocketing a biography to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list: Take a well-known subject, present a view of him not everyone will agree with, then have Fox News interview you, focusing almost exclusively on your Muslim beliefs and why a Muslim would write about Jesus Christ.

Most likely, that’s not a recipe for success that Aslan or anyone else will be duplicating soon. But there’s no question that Aslan’s interview with Lauren Green sparked interest in Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, a biography that might otherwise have gone under the mainstream media’s radar. Green brought in others’ criticisms of the book, and she tried to link Aslan’s ideas with traditional Muslim views of Jesus. She also claimed he was not totally forthcoming about his Muslim identity. The interview went viral, with many people noting what Professor Moustafa Bayoumi, in a blog for The Chronicle of Higher Education, called Green’s “unrelenting daftness.” Some commentators also saw the interview as another sign of Fox’s anti-Muslim bias. And still others noted that Aslan’s harping on his academic credentials was as frustrating as Green’s tactics.

Aslan is a Muslim, but he was educated at a Jesuit university and briefly converted to Christianity. He is also a scholar of religion with a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard, among his other degrees. Aslan said in an interview with Biographile that he approached Zealot as a historian seeking to do biography and without entering into theology: “What biography essentially forces me to do is to maintain a sense of grounding, to keep from making statements that cannot be backed by the history of the world in which Jesus lived.”

Critics of Zealot say Aslan’s interpretation of Jesus’s life, painting him as a Jewish revolutionary against Roman rule, is not new and that some of his facts are wrong. A review in Christianity Today raised these points, and noted that Aslan’s book lacks academic rigor, reading more like a novel than a scholarly work.

Another view of the life of the historical Jesus will be appearing in December, with the publication of Jesus: The Human Face of God by Jay Parini. It’s the first release in a series of short biographies published by Amazon, under the editorial direction of James Atlas. [TBC hopes to have an interview with Atlas on the “Icons” series and his upcoming book on the craft of biography in the next issue. Ed.] Like Aslan, Parini has a personal background that some could say would influence his approach to his subject. His father was a Baptist minister, and he is a practicing Christian. In an interview with the Washington Post, Parini said he respected Aslan as a writer but disagreed with his conclusions. “Aslan’s Jesus is not mine,” Parini said.

The Zealot story raises larger question for biographers: Do their biases and predilections shape the interpretation of their subjects? Do they have a duty to disclose those leanings in their work? Should critics be dismissive of or more skeptical of works by biographers who might have personal traits or beliefs that might color their work? To Aslan, part of the answer is this: “There’s no such thing as objective history: a scholar cannot help but bring his own impressions and perceptions into his study, no matter how hard he tries.”

Watch the Aslan-Green Interview

Read Aslan’s interview with Biographile

Fall Bio Lineup Promises Plenty of Good Reading

August 7th, 2013

The fall season of 2013 (August through February) has the most impressive lineup of biographies in years. Sucking up a lot of publicity oxygen will be Wilson by A. Scott Berg, the author of Max Perkins: Editor of Genius and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charles Lindberg, being published by Putnam in September. Also in the same month, Ballantine will bring out Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones, vice president of BIO. Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno will be released by Simon & Schuster, timed with the much talked-about documentary film about the late reclusive writer.

Other writers will also be the subjects of a number of biographies this season including E. E. Cummings: A Life by Susan Cheever (Pantheon), Call Me Burroughs: A Life by Barry Miles (Twelve), Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett (St. Martin’s Press), Norman Mailer: A Double Life by J. Michael Lennon (Simon & Schuster), Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore by Linda Leavell, and Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Mystery readers will certainly flock to Dashiell Hammett: Man of Mystery by Sally Cline (Arcade Publishing) and A Mysterious Something in the Light: The Life of Raymond Chandler by Tom Williams (Chicago Review Press).

Figures from American politics getting their moment in the biographical sun include Pat and Dick: The Nixons, An Intimate Portrait of a Marriage by Will Swift (Threshold Editions), The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency by James Tobin (Simon & Shuster), and Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero Michael Korda (Harper).

William Morrow expects to have another best-selling assassination book on its hands when it publishes the much-anticipated End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson, the author of the mega-selling Manhunt, in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination.

A certain standout among forthcoming sports books will be The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee Jr. (Little, Brown and Company). Bradlee is featured in this month’s Member Interview

Musical biographies topping the list are Johnny Cash: The Life by Robert Hilburn (Little, Brown and Company) and Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout (Gotham).

Royalty books are now again a growth industry since the younger members of the British royal family have come on the scene. Among the forthcoming biographies are Harry: A Biography by Marcia Moody (Michael O’Mara), Kate: A Biography by Marcia Moody (Michael O’Mara)—um, do we detect a trend in titles here?—Kate: The Future Queen by Katie Nicholl (Weinstein Books), and The New Royal Family: Prince George, William and Kate, the Next Generation by Rob Jobson and Arthur Edwards (John Blake), which includes a cover so recent as to include the newest member of the family, little George.

Other titles expected to garner attention are: Self-help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America by Steven Watts (Other Press),  Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty by Jerry Oppenheimer (St. Martin’s Press).

Last but not least, those readers who like their books long will be looking to pick up—with a back brace—the 1,088-page A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 by Victoria Wilson (Simon & Schuster), which is only volume one of the actress’s life.

For a more complete list of books coming out this fall, go here.

“Caution” Should be the Mantra for Authors Seeking Publicists, One BIO Member Learned the Hard Way

August 7th, 2013

By Betsy Connor Bowen

You’ve written a book, it’s getting published. You’re fired up. Everything’s coming up roses. You’ve earned your chops.

Not so fast. It’s a new world for book publishing, and it’s often the writer who hires the publicist, not the publisher. Whereas over time a publisher would build up a storehouse of knowledge about the professionalism and integrity of various publicists, face it: you know nothing. Watch out. Shop around. It takes time to check references and you’d rather be polishing your manuscript, but do it. And see if the publicist has had success marketing to the audience for your book.

I wish I had.

Publicists protect themselves with a disclaimer that they don’t guarantee results. The agent and the publicist for my book, a WWII memoir, were business partners in a publishing and promotion startup with a list heavy (I later learned) in books in other subjects. The publicity plan for the book was to reach the military history market, but when it didn’t, I suspected why, but at that point I had no recourse.

A friend hired a publicist recommended by his agent without disclosing he had a business relationship with him. Had my friend known at the time they were in business together he would not have hired the publicist.

Reputable agents make money from the sale of your book, not from having you hire a publicist (or an editor, for that matter). Hiring a publicist, on the other hand, is trickier. You pay a publicist to carry out a publicity plan aimed at the book’s audience. That’s the way it should be, but in the real world, sometimes is not.

As BIO members, we have a unique opportunity to protect each other. I heartily support “Boswell’s List,” newly added to the BIO website,  “a guide to researchers, publicists, editors, indexers and others who can assist you in your work,” where each person listed has been recommended by a BIO member.

Sadly, right now Boswell’s List is under-populated. Let’s be diligent about recommending publicists whose professionalism and integrity we respect. It is difficult to navigate these waters alone, but at least we can help each other.

Betsy Connor Bowen’s latest book, Newspaperman, is a biography of her father, Croswell Bowen. It will be available in spring 2014 from the University of Nebraska Press. Bowen previously edited her father’s war memoir, Back from Tobruk. You can visit her website here.

While nothing can guarantee the ethics of an individual agent or publicist, here are some professional associations BIO members might want to consult when looking for someone in those fields:

Association of Authors’ Representatives
AAR’s Canon of Ethics states: “The members of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. are committed to the highest standard of conduct in the performance of their professional activities…. [M]embers pledge themselves to loyal service to their clients’ business and artistic needs, and will allow no conflicts of interest that would interfere with such service.”

Public Relations Society of America
PRSA’s Code of Ethics includes this: “We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public…. We provide objective counsel to those we represent. We are accountable for our actions.”

Association of Authors’ Agents
The Code of Practice of this UK organization says, among other things: “All members shall at all times act honestly, and in such a manner that neither clients nor third parties are misled… All members shall promote and protect their clients’ best interests and maintain regular contact to keep them informed as to work undertaken on their behalf.”

Finally, BIO member Andrew Lownie, owner of a UK-based literary agency, offers this perspective on his recent experience with publicists: “Some of it is luck and not all comes down to experience because it was the younger publicists who had less experience who delivered because they were imaginative.”

For authors in the UK, Lownie recommends three publicists:
Emma Donnan
Tabitha Pelly
Nicky Stonehill  ‎

And you can reach Andrew’s website here.

Fall Books – 2013

August 6th, 2013

 If your forthcoming book is not listed below, drop us a line.

August

The Winter Sun Shines In: A Life of Masaoka Shiki by Donald Keene (Columbia University Press)

Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation by Robert Wilson (Bloomsbury)

These Few Precious Days: The Final Year of Jack with Jackie by Christopher Andersen (Gallery Books)

Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music by Neil Powell (Henry Holt and Co.)

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia: Personality, Faith and Times by Alexei Vassiliev (Saqi Books)

Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star by Stephen Michael Shearer and Jeanine Basinger (Thomas Dunne Books)

Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty by

Jerry Oppenheimer (St. Martin’s Press)

September

Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize by Sean B. Carroll (Crown)

Wilson by A. Scott Berg (Putnam)

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman, and Paul Clark Newell, Jr. (Ballantine)

Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (Ballantine)

American Dictators: Frank Hague, Nucky Johnson, and the Perfection of the Urban Political Machine by Steven Hart (Rutgers University Press)

Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher by Robin Harris (Thomas Dunne)

The Many Lives of Miss K: Toto Koopman – Model, Muse, Spy by Jean-Noel Liaut,  trans. Denise Jacobs (Rizzoli Ex Libris)

Eugene Braunwald and the Rise of Modern Medicine by Thomas H. Lee

(Harvard University Press)

Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker by Stanley Crouch

(HarperCollins)

An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer’s Life by Shirley Streshinsky and Patricia Klaus (Turner Publishing Company)

Sydney and Violet: Their Life with T.S. Eliot, Proust, Joyce and the Excruciatingly Irascible Wyndham Lewis by Stephen Klaidman (Nan A. Talese)

The Tudor Rose: Princess Mary, Henry VIII’s Sister by Jennifer Kewley Draskau (The History Press)

A Mysterious Something in the Light: The Life of Raymond Chandler by Tom Williams

(Chicago Review Press)

Junipero Serra: California’s Founding Father by Steven W. Hackel (Hill and Wang)

A Strong Song Tows Us: The Life of Basil Bunting by Richard Burton (Prospecta Press)

No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin (Da Capo Press)

A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 by Victoria Wilson (Simon & Schuster)

Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno (Simon & Schuster)

Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life by David Stouck (Douglas & McIntyre)

October

A Man and his Mountain: The Everyman who Created Kendall-Jackson and Became America’s Greatest Wine Entrepreneur by Edward Humes (PublicAffairs)

Self-help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America by Steven Watts (Other Press)

Lincoln in the World: The Making of a Statesman and the Dawn of American Power by

Kevin Peraino (Crown)

Norman Mailer: A Double Life by J. Michael Lennon (Simon & Schuster)

Nicholson: A Biography by Marc Eliot (Crown Archetype)

Paul Robeson: A Watched Man by Jordan Goodman (Verso)

Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade by Rachel Cohen (Yale University Press

Kurt Cobain: The Nirvana Years by Carrie Borzillo (Carlton Books)

Once Upon a Time: The Lives of Bob Dylan by Ian Bell (Pegasus)

The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye by Jeremy Dauber (Schocken)

Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure by Artemis Cooper (New York Review Books)

Johnny Cash: The Life by Robert Hilburn (Little, Brown and Company)

Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout (Gotham)

Torment Saint: The Life of Elliott Smith by William Todd Schultz (Bloomsbury)

Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind by Gavin Edwards (It Books)

The Angel of Charleston: Grace Higgens, Housekeeper to the Bloomsbury Set by Stewart MacKay (British Library)

Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett (St. Martin’s Press)

The New Royal Family: Prince George, William and Kate, the Next Generation by

Rob Jobson and Arthur Edwards (John Blake)

Kate: A Biography by Marcia Moody (Michael O’Mara)

George Washington: Gentleman Warrior by Stephen Brumwell (Quercus Publishing)

JFK in the Senate: Pathway to the Presidency by John T. Shaw (Palgrave Macmillan)

Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D’Arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia

Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins (Thomas Dunne Books)

Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore by Linda Leavell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

JFK, Conservative by Ira Stoll (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero Michael Korda (Harper)

Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset (Knopf)

Breakfast with Lucian : The Astounding Life and Outrageous Times of Britain’s Great Modern Painter by Geordie Greig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait by Kendra Bean (Running Press)

Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked by Chris Matthews (Simon & Schuster)

Kate: The Future Queen by Katie Nicholl (Weinstein Books)

Crusader for Justice: Federal Judge Damon J. Keith by Trevor W. Coleman and Mitch Albom

(Wayne State University Press)

The Rise of Abraham Cahan by Seth Lipsky (Schocken)

Chef Tell: The Biography of America’s Pioneer TV Showman Chef by Ronald Joseph Kule, Regis Philbin,  and Walter Staib (Skyhorse Publishing)

Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality by Jonathan Aitken (Bloomsbury USA)

Greta Garbo: Divine Star by David Bret (Biteback Publishing, Ltd.)

November

The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency by James Tobin

(Simon & Shuster)

Pinkerton’s Great Detective: The Amazing Life and Times of James McParland by

Beau Riffenburgh (Viking)

Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life by Berel Lang and Ariella Lang (Yale University Press)

Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power by Philip Dwyer (Yale University Press)

Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World by Leo Damrosch (Yale University Press)

Wellington: The Path to Victory 1769-1814 by Rory Muir (Yale University Press)

Lillian Hellman: An Imperious Life by Dorothy Gallagher (Yale University Press)

A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning by Robert Zaretsky (Belknap Press)

De Gaulle: The Man Who Defied Six US Presidents by Douglas Boyd (The History Press)

Henry VIII: The Life and Rule of England’s Nero by John Matusiak (The History Press)

Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution by Yehudah Mirsky (Yale University Press)

Phil Jackson: Lord of the Rings by Peter Richmond (Blue Rider Press)

American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell by Deborah Solomon (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by David Henry and Joe Henry (Algonquin Books)

End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson (William Morrow)

December

Musorgsky and His Circle: A Russian Musical Adventure by Stephen Walsh (Knopf)

Glorious War: The Civil War Adventures of George Armstrong Custer by Thom Hatch (St. Martin’s)

Ryan Gosling: Hollywood’s Finest by Nick Johnstone (John Blake)

Harry: A Biography by Marcia Moody (Michael O’Mara)

Beethoven: The Man Revealed by John Suchet (Atlantic Monthly Press)

The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince by Jane Ridley (Random House)

William and Dorothy Wordsworth: ‘All in each other’ by Lucy Newlyn (Oxford University Press)

Robert Plant: A Life by Paul Rees (It Books)

The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee (Little, Brown and Company)

Cadwallader Colden: A Biography by Seymour I. Schwartz (Humanity Books)

Tennyson: To Strive, To Seek, To Find by John Batchelor (Pegasus)

I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers, and the March up Freedom’s Highway by Greg Kot (Scribner)

Call Me Burroughs: A Life by Barry Miles (Twelve)

Emperor Huizong by Patricia Buckley Ebrey (Harvard University Press)

Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (Belknap Press)

Space Has No Frontier: The Terrestrial Life and Times of Bernard Lovell by John Bromley-Davenport (Bene Factum Publishing)

Hitler’s Valkyrie: The Uncensored Biography of Unity Mitford by David R. L. Litchfield (The History Press)

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: A Biography Through Images by Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi and David Gilmour (Alma Books)

Pat and Dick: The Nixons, An Intimate Portrait of a Marriage by Will Swift (Threshold Editions)

Arik: The Life of Ariel Sharon by David Landau (Knopf)

Wooden: A Coach’s Life by Seth Davis (Times Books)

Dashiell Hammett: Man of Mystery by Sally Cline (Arcade Publishing)

George Orwell: English Rebel by Robert Colls (Oxford University Press)

Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image by Joshua Zeitz (Viking)

The Double Life of Paul De Man by Evelyn Barish (Liveright)

February

Faisal I of Iraq by Ali A. Allawi (Yale University Press)

E. E. Cummings: A Life by Susan Cheever (Pantheon)

James and Dolley Madison: America’s First Power Couple by Bruce Chadwick (Prometheus Books)

Eliot Ness: The Rise and Fall of an American Hero by Douglas Perry (Viking)

Brooks: The Biography of Brooks Robinson by Doug Wilson (St. Martin’s)

Bolivar Biographer Explores the Challenges of Choosing Foreign Subjects

July 14th, 2013

With the publishing of her Bolivar: An American Liberator, BIO member Marie Arana has won glowing reviews and been featured in many media outlets. Born in Peru, Arana is the former editor-in chief of the Washington Post’s Book World and is currently a writer-at-large for that paper, as well as a biographer and novelist. TBC asked Arana about her new book and some of the challenges a biographer might face when dealing with a subject who is not from the English-speaking world. 

Arana is a John W. Kluge Distinguished Scholar at the Library of Congress.

How do you make a foreign subject relevant for an American audience?
That, of course, is the question for all time. Throughout my writing career, I have tried to explain Latin America to an English-speaking audience. The effort is not without its challenges. James Reston, past editor of the New York Times, famously said that America was willing to do anything for Latin America except read about it. I’ve been trying to turn that prediction on its ear. With time, I learned it wasn’t I who would make the subject of the southern hemisphere relevant to readers, but the subject itself. South America is traveling north, and that hemispheric force that has been pressing north for more than two centuries stands to redefine North America in surprising ways. I haven’t had to make the subject relevant for an American audience; the subject is doing that for itself.