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Adam Johnson (writer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adam Johnson
Born (1967-07-12) July 12, 1967 (age 57)
South Dakota, U.S.
OccupationAuthor, lecturer
EducationArizona State University, Tempe (BA)
McNeese State University (MFA)
Florida State University (PhD)
GenreFiction
Notable awardsPulitzer Prize, National Book Award

Adam Johnson (born July 12, 1967) is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.[1]

Early life

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Johnson was born in South Dakota and is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.[2] He was raised in Tempe, Arizona and attended Marcos de Niza High School.

Education

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Johnson earned a BA in Journalism from Arizona State University in 1992, though he studied principally with the fiction writer Ron Carlson. He earned an MFA from the writing program at McNeese State University in 1996, where he studied with Robert Olen Butler and John Wood. In 2001, he earned a PhD in English from Florida State University. Janet Burroway directed his dissertation.

Career

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Johnson is currently a San Francisco writer and professor in creative writing[3] at Stanford University. He founded the Stanford Graphic Novel Project and was named "one of the nation's most influential and imaginative college professors" by Playboy magazine[4] and "one of the most impressive professors at Stanford" by Business Insider.[5]

Johnson is the author of the novel The Orphan Master's Son (2012), which Michiko Kakutani, writing in The New York Times, called, "a daring and remarkable novel, a novel that not only opens a frightening window on the mysterious kingdom of North Korea, but one that also excavates the very meaning of love and sacrifice."[6] Johnson's interest in the topic arose from his sensitivity to the language of propaganda, wherever it occurs.[7] Johnson also wrote the short-story collections Emporium and Fortune Smiles and the novel Parasites Like Us, which won a California Book Award in 2003.[8] His work has been published in Esquire, Harper's Magazine, Tin House, and The Paris Review, as well as Best New American Voices and The Best American Short Stories. Recently, his short story "George Orwell was a Friend of Mine" was published by 21st Editions in The Janus Turn with photographs in platinum by George Tice.[9]

Johnson's work focuses on characters at the edge of society for whom isolation and disconnection are nearly permanent conditions. Michiko Kakutani described the central theme running through his tales as "a melancholy melody of longing and loss: a Salingeresque sense of adolescent alienation and confusion, combined with an acute awareness of the randomness of life and the difficulty of making and sustaining connections."[10]

According to Daniel Mendelsohn, writing for New York magazine, "Johnson's oh-so-slightly futuristic flights of fancy, his vaguely Blade Runner–esque visions of a cluttered, anaerobic American culture, illustrate something very real, very current: the way we must embrace the unknown, take risks, in order to give flavor and meaning to life."[11] A strain of absurdity also runs through his work, causing it to be described as "a funky new science fiction that was part irony and part pure dread."[12] "Teen Sniper" is about young sniper prodigy enlisted by the Palo Alto police department to suppress the disgruntled workers of Silicon Valley. "The Canadanaut" follows a remote team of Canadian weapons developers who race to beat the Russians to the moon.

Awards and honors

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Bibliography

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Novels

Short story collections

Story publications

References

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  1. ^ Tanza Loudenback, Adam Johnson is a Pulitzer-prize winner for fiction - 13 of the most impressive professors at Stanford Archived 2015-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Business Insider, October 4, 2015
  2. ^ "Adam Johnson | Department of English".
  3. ^ "Faculty | Department of English". English.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-05-12. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  4. ^ "THE NATION'S MOST INFLUENTIAL & IMAGINATIVE COLLEGE PROFESSORS HONORED IN PLAYBOY'S OCTOBER ISSUE". Cs.rpi.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  5. ^ "THE MOST IMPRESSIVE PROFESSORS AT STANORD". Business Insider. 2015-09-01. Archived from the original on 2018-01-07. Retrieved 2018-01-06.
  6. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (12 January 2012). "The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson : Review". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2015-04-03. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  7. ^ "INTERVIEW: Adam Johnson". Electricliterature.com. Archived from the original on 2014-05-24. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  8. ^ [1] Archived September 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ "CONTRIBUTORS". 21st Editions, The Art of the Book. Archived from the original on 2015-10-02.
  10. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (2002-04-02). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES - An Out-of-Kilter World, Just Down the Interstate - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  11. ^ Mendelsohn, Daniel (2002-05-13). "Road to Nowhere". Nymag.com. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  12. ^ Dederer, Claire (2003-08-22). "Entertainment & the Arts | 'Parasites' blazes a trail in apocalyptic comedy". Community.seattletimes.nwsource.com. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  13. ^ hiroshi (20 December 2015). "Glendon and Kathryn Swarthout Awards in Writing". asu.edu. Archived from the original on 17 May 2017. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  14. ^ "Alumni Award for Distinguished Writing Winners - Florida State University Libraries". www.lib.fsu.edu. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  15. ^ "Stegner Fellowship – Complete List of Stegner Fellows « Stanford Creative Writing Program". creativewriting.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 11 March 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  16. ^ a b BookBrowse. "Adam Johnson author biography". bookbrowse.com. Archived from the original on 15 September 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  17. ^ "Young Lions Award List of Winners and Finalists". The New York Public Library. Archived from the original on 25 August 2017. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  18. ^ a b Books, Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's. "Best New American Voices by Francine Prose". www.powells.com. Archived from the original on 10 September 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ "Adam Johnson - WHITING AWARDS". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04.
  20. ^ "2010 Grant Awards: Literature Fellowships: Creative Writing (Prose)". National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on January 6, 2013. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  21. ^ "Second Annual Gina Berriault Award Reading - San Francisco State University". Oi.sfsu.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-04-03. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  22. ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes Citation". Pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on 2015-02-21. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  23. ^ Meredith Moss (September 24, 2013). "2013 Dayton Literary Peace Prize winners announced". Dayton Daily News. Archived from the original on September 28, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2013.
  24. ^ Richard Brooks (April 6, 2014). "Cobain helps win short story prize". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on May 29, 2014. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
  25. ^ "2015 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Archived from the original on 19 November 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  26. ^ Alter, Alexandra (19 November 2015). "Ta-Nehisi Coates Wins National Book Award". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 20 November 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  27. ^ "Adam Johnson wins $20,000 Story Prize for short fiction". The Washington Post. Associated Press. March 2, 2016. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  28. ^ "Adam Johnson's 'Fortune Smiles'". The New York Times. 16 August 2015. Archived from the original on 7 February 2016.
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