| Adam Haslett | |
| Birth Date: | 24 December 1970 |
| Birth Place: | Rye, New York, U.S. |
| Education: | Swarthmore College (BA) University of Iowa (MFA) Yale University (JD) |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Notable Works: | Imagine Me Gone (2016) |
| Awards: | PEN/Malamud Award (2006) Lambda Literary Award (2011) Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (2016) |
Adam Haslett (born December 24, 1970) is an American fiction writer and journalist.[1] His debut short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here, and his second novel, Imagine Me Gone, were both finalists for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.[2] He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy in Berlin. In 2017, he won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Haslett was born in Rye, New York and raised in Massachusetts and Oxfordshire, England. After graduating from Wellesley High School, he went on to receive a B.A. in English from Swarthmore College, an M.F.A. in creative writing from Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a J.D. from Yale University.
Haslett began his career as a writer with a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He published his first short story, “Notes To My Biographer”, in Zoetrope Magazine. This is the first story in his debut collection, You Are Not A Stranger Here, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and was a New York Times Bestseller. The book was noted chiefly for its depictions of mental illness[3] and “masterly sense of character.”[4]
In 2010, Haslett published his first novel, Union Atlantic, which centers on a conflict over a piece of land between a young banker and a retired school teacher who is offended by the banker's new mansion. The novel was finished the week that the 2008 financial crisis began, and is the portrait of the culture of impunity than led to the great recession.[5] It was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize and received the Lambda Literary Award.
His second novel, Imagine Me Gone, was published in 2016. It depicts a family coping with the intergenerational consequences of the father and eldest son's struggles with depression and anxiety.[6] It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2019, Literary Hub named it one of the twenty best novels of the decade.[7]
In his journalism, Haslett has written about American politics,[8] the financial crisis,[9] and a range of cultural topics including gay marriage[10] in The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Financial Times, The Guardian, and The Nation, among others.
He has been a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Columbia University.