Kevin Baker | |
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Born | 1958 (age 65–66)
[1] Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. |
Occupation |
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Education | Columbia University |
Genre | Realistic fiction, historical fiction, Nonfiction |
Website | |
kevinbaker |
Kevin Baker (born 1958) is an American novelist, political commentator, and journalist.
Baker was born in Englewood, New Jersey, [1] and grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts. [2] [3] As a youth, he worked on the local newspaper Gloucester Daily Times, [1] covering high school sports, as well as town meetings and other civic affairs. He graduated from Columbia University in 1980, [1] with a major in political science. [2]
In 1993, Baker's first book, Sometimes You See it Coming (1993), [1] a contemporary baseball novel loosely based on the life of Ty Cobb, was published. [2]
He was the chief historical researcher on Harold Evans’s illustrated history of the United States, The American Century (1998). [4] He was a columnist ("In the News") for American Heritage magazine from 1998 to 2007. [5] In 2009 appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and The Colbert Report, to discuss the Obama presidency. [6]
Baker is the author of the City of Fire trilogy, published by HarperCollins, which consists of the following historical novels: Dreamland (1998); the bestselling Paradise Alley (2002); and Strivers Row (2006). The middle volume of the trilogy won the 2003 James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction [7] and the 2003 American Book Award. [8] Paradise Alley was also chosen by bestselling Angela's Ashes author, Frank McCourt, as a Today show book club selection.
In 2009, he wrote Luna Park, a graphic novel illustrated by Croatian artist Danijel Žeželj. [9]
A writer of over 200 newspaper and magazine articles, Baker was the recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim fellowship for non-fiction.
Baker lives in New York City, where he is a contributing editor to and bi-monthly columnist for Harper's Magazine, [5] and a regular contributor to Politico.com, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The New York Times Book Review.