American writer
Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979)
[1] is an American poet, novelist, essayist, critic and teacher. The recipient of fellowships from the
Fulbright ,
Guggenheim , and
MacArthur Foundations, Lerner has been a finalist for the
National Book Award for Poetry and the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction , among many other honors.
[2]
[3] Lerner teaches at
Brooklyn College , where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.
[4]
Life and work
Lerner was born and raised in
Topeka, Kansas , which figures in each of his books of poetry. His mother is the clinical psychologist
Harriet Lerner .
[5] He is a 1997 graduate of
Topeka High School , where he participated in
debate and
forensics , winning the 1997
National Forensic League National Tournament in International Extemporaneous Speaking.
[6] At
Brown University he studied with poet
C. D. Wright and earned a
B.A. in
political theory and an
MFA in poetry.
[7]
Lerner was awarded the
Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of 52
sonnets , The Lichtenberg Figures .
[8]
In 2004
Library Journal named it one of the year's 12 best books of poetry.
In 2003 Lerner traveled on a
Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain, where he wrote his second book of poetry, Angle of Yaw , which was published in 2006. It was named a finalist for the
National Book Award . His third poetry collection, Mean Free Path , was published in 2010.
Lerner's first novel,
Leaving the Atocha Station , published in 2011,
[9] won the
Believer Book Award
[10] and was a finalist for the
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction (
The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction ) and the
New York Public Library 's
Young Lions Fiction Award . Writing in
The Guardian ,
Geoff Dyer called it "a work so luminously original in style and form as to seem like a premonition, a comet from the future."
[11]
Excerpts of Lerner's second novel,
10:04 , won the
Terry Southern Prize from
The Paris Review .
[12] Writing in the
Los Angeles Review of Books ,
Maggie Nelson called 10:04 a "near perfect piece of literature."
[13]
The New York Times Book Review called Lerner's 2019 novel
The Topeka School "a high-water mark in recent American fiction."
[14] Giles Harvey, in
The New York Times Magazine , called it "the best book yet by the most talented writer of his generation." Lerner's essays, art criticism, and literary criticism have appeared in
Harper's Magazine , the
London Review of Books ,
The New York Review of Books , and
The New Yorker , among other publications.
[15] The Topeka School, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a finalist for the
2020
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction .
[16]
In 2023, Lerner published his fourth full-length book of poetry, both verse and prose poems, The Lights. In The New York Times,
Srikanth Reddy wrote: "It takes a poet to invent characters who argue that 'the voice must be sung into existence.' It takes a novelist to honor so many perspectives, histories and intimacies in one book..The poet/novelist of The Lights enlarges Baudelaire’s experiments in prose poetry into a multistory dream house for contemporary American readers." In The New Yorker, Kamran Javadizadeh called The Lights "world-bridging poetry", "uncannily beautiful", and "exceedingly lovely".
In 2008 Lerner began editing poetry for
Critical Quarterly , a British scholarly publication.
[17] In 2016 he became the first poetry editor at
Harper's .
[18] He has taught at
California College of the Arts and the
University of Pittsburgh , and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at
Brooklyn College .
[19]
In 2016 Lerner became a Fellow of the
New York Institute for the Humanities .
[20] He received a 2015
MacArthur Fellowship .
[21]
Work on Wikipedia
In the December 2023 issue of
Harper's Magazine , Lerner published a fictional story titled "The Hofmann Wobble: Wikipedia and the Problem of Historical Memory."
[22] In the story, Lerner demonstrates a familiarity with Wikipedian editing and administrative processes, as well as problematic issues such as
circular reporting , sockfarm creation, and sponsored content on Wikipedia. He explained: "I've written a short story—or a kind of fictional essay (it's based on a real project of mine but all the facts have been altered)—about a young man's efforts to manipulate Wikipedia for the good (so he thinks) through the construction of multiple online identities."
Reflections about Lerner's piece prompted a "Disinformation Report" reflection in the December 4, 2023, issue of
The Signpost .
[23]
Bibliography
Poetry
Novels
Non-fiction
The Hatred of Poetry. FSG Originals, 2016.
Edited volumes
Keeping / the window open: Interviews, Statements, Alarms, Excursions. On Keith and
Rosmarie Waldrop . Wave Books, 2019.
Collaborations with artists
Awards
2003 – Hayden Carruth Award
[25]
2003–2004 –
Fulbright Fellowship
[26]
2006 – Finalist,
National Book Award
[27] for Angle of Yaw .
2006 – Finalist, Northern California Book Awards for Angle of Yaw
[28]
2007 –
Kansas Notable Book Award for Angle of Yaw
2010–2011 – Howard Foundation Fellowship
[29]
2011 – Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie
[30]
2011 – Finalist,
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction
[31]
2012 – Finalist,
Young Lions Fiction Award of the
New York Public Library
[32]
2012 –
Believer Book Award
[10]
2012 – Finalist,
William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
[33]
2012 – Finalist, PEN/Bingham Award
[34]
2013 – Finalist, James Tait Black Memorial Prize
[35]
2013 – Guggenheim Fellowship
[15]
2014 – Terry Southern Fiction Prize from
The Paris Review
[12]
2014 – Finalist,
Folio Prize
[36]
2017 – named one of Granta's best young American novelists
2015–2020 Winner,
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship
2019 – Finalist,
Folio Prize
2019 – Finalist,
National Book Critics Circle Award
2019 Winner,
Kansas Notable Book Award
2019 – Winner,
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction
2020 – Finalist,
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
[3]
2024 -- Long listed for
The Griffin Prize for poetry
References
^
"[I'm going to kill the president...] (Ben Lerner) · Lyrikline.org" . September 26, 2016. Archived from
the original on 2016-09-26.
^
"Writers Speak | Ben Lerner in conversation with Duncan White" . mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu .
^
a
b
"2020 Pulitzer Prizes" . www.pulitzer.org . Retrieved 2023-11-30 .
^
"CUNY Trustees Approve New Labor Contracts – CUNY Newswire" .
Archived from the original on 2016-09-22. Retrieved 2016-07-04 .
^ Link (2006-12-05).
"Silliman's Blog" . Ronsilliman.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2011-06-19 .
^ Blankenship, Bill (March 9, 2005).
"Young poet to read works at Washburn" .
The Topeka Capital-Journal . Retrieved May 7, 2014 .
^ Lerner, Ben (January 14, 2016).
"Postscript: C.D. Wright, 1949-2016" . The New Yorker .
^
"Ben Lerner's First Time" . The Paris Review . Retrieved June 27, 2016 .
^
"Ben Lerner" . Narrative Magazine. 2008-12-15.
Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-19 .
^
a
b
"Ben Lerner Wins the Believer Book Award" . Archived from
the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2016 .
^ Dyer, Geoff (2012-07-05).
"Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner – review" . The Guardian .
Archived from the original on 2016-11-21. Retrieved 2016-12-11 .
^
a
b The Paris Review (2014-03-12).
"Emma Cline Wins Plimpton Prize; Ben Lerner Wins Terry Southern Prize" . The Paris Review . Retrieved 22 March 2016 .
^ Nelson, Maggie (August 24, 2014). "
Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth: On Ben Lerner's Latest ". Los Angeles Review of Books . Retrieved 2019-10-09.
^ Hallberg, Garth Risk (2019-10-03).
"Ben Lerner's 'The Topeka School' Revisits the Debates of the '90s" . The New York Times .
ISSN
0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-10-05 .
^
a
b
"Ben Lerner - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation" . Archived from
the original on 2013-04-15. Retrieved 2013-04-12 .
^ Maher, John (May 4, 2020).
"Moser, Whitehead, McDaniel, Grandin, Boyer, Brown Win 2020 Pulitzers" .
Publishers Weekly . Retrieved May 4, 2020 .
^ Gavin, Alice (2008-04-16). "The 'angle of immunity': face and façade in Beckett's Film ". Critical Quarterly . 50 (3): 77–89.
doi :
10.1111/j.1467-8705.2008.00833.x .
^ McMorris, Mark (March 2016).
"The Drums of Marrakesh" . Harper's Magazine .
Archived from the original on 2016-05-02. Retrieved 2016-04-04 .
^
"Brooklyn College English Department – MFA Faculty" . Depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu. Archived from
the original on 2011-09-03. Retrieved 2011-06-19 .
^
"Meet the New Fellows of 2016" . 9 May 2016.
^
"Ben Lerner — MacArthur Foundation" . www.macfound.org . Retrieved 2015-09-29 .
^ Lerner, Ben (December 2023).
"The Hofmann Wobble: Wikipedia and the problem of historical memory" . Harper's Magazine . Vol. 347, no. 2083. pp. 27–32.
^
"Wikipedia and the assault on history" . The Signpost . 19 (23). December 4, 2023.
^
"FSG's Favorite Books of 2013" . Work in Progress . 2013-12-19. Retrieved 22 March 2016 .
^
"Ben Lerner" , University of Pittsburgh.
Archived March 15, 2009, at the
Wayback Machine
^
"Acclaimed young poet Ben Lerner relocates to Pittsburgh. – Books – Book Reviews & Features – Pittsburgh City Paper" . Pittsburghcitypaper.ws.
Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-19 .
^
"National Book Award 2006" . Nationalbook.org. Archived from
the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 19 June 2011 .
^
"Poetry Flash:NCBRAwards" .
Poetry Flash . Archived from
the original on 2008-05-13.
^
"New Fellows" . Brown.edu. Archived from
the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-19 .
^
"Stadt Münster: Kulturamt – Lyrikertreffen" . Muenster.de.
Archived from the original on 17 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-19 .
^
"Book Prizes – Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Los Angeles Times" . Los Angeles Times . Archived from
the original on 2017-06-10. Retrieved 2012-03-13 .
^
"The New York Public Library's 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists Announced" . Flavorwire . 14 March 2012. Retrieved 22 March 2016 .
^
"2012 Saroyan Prize Shortlist" . Archived from
the original on 2012-05-29. Retrieved 2012-05-19 .
^
"Finalist for the 2012 PEN/Bingham Award" . Star Tribune .
^
"Last year's shortlist | James Tait Black Prizes" . Archived from
the original on 2013-04-29. Retrieved 2013-07-22 .
^ Kellogg, Carolyn (2015-02-09).
"Folio Prize shortlist includes Ben Lerner, Colm Toibin, Ali Smith" . The Los Angeles Times .
Archived from the original on 2016-11-27. Retrieved 2014-11-26 .
External links
International National Academics People Other