Ben Lerner Explained

Ben Lerner
Birth Date:4 February 1979
Birth Place:Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Education:Brown University (BA, MFA)
Genre:Poetry, novels, essays
Awards:Fulbright Scholar
Guggenheim Fellowship
Believer Book Award
MacArthur Fellowship

Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979)[1] is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. The recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among many other honors.[2] Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.[3]

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.[4] 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.[5] At Brown University he studied with poet C. D. Wright and earned a B.A. in political theory and an MFA in poetry.[6]

Lerner was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of 52 sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures.[7] 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,[8] won the Believer Book Award[9] 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."[10]

Excerpts of Lerner's second novel, , won the Terry Southern Prize from The Paris Review.[11] Writing in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Maggie Nelson called 10:04 a "near perfect piece of literature."[12]

The New York Times Book Review called Lerner's 2019 novel The Topeka School "a high-water mark in recent American fiction."[13] Giles Harvey, in The New York Times Magazine, called it "the best book yet by the most talented writer of his generation." The New York Times also named it one of the ten best books of the year.[14] 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".[17]

In 2008 Lerner began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British scholarly publication.[18] In 2016 he became the first poetry editor at Harper's.[19] 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.[20]

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."[21] 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.[22]

Bibliography

Poetry

Novels

Non-fiction

Edited volumes

Collaborations with artists

Awards

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: [I'm going to kill the president...] (Ben Lerner) · Lyrikline.org]. September 26, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160926193646/http://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/im-going-kill-president-7372#.WZblr1FLfyN . 2016-09-26 .
  2. Web site: Writers Speak | Ben Lerner in conversation with Duncan White. mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu.
  3. Web site: CUNY Trustees Approve New Labor Contracts – CUNY Newswire . 2016-07-04 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20160922183628/http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2016/06/27/cuny-trustees-approve-new-labor-contracts/ . 2016-09-22 .
  4. Web site: Link . Silliman's Blog . Ronsilliman.blogspot.com . 2006-12-05 . 2011-06-19.
  5. News: Young poet to read works at Washburn . Blankenship . Bill . . March 9, 2005 . May 7, 2014.
  6. Postscript: C.D. Wright, 1949-2016. Lerner. Ben. January 14, 2016. The New Yorker.
  7. Web site: Ben Lerner's First Time . The Paris Review . 16 February 2016 . June 27, 2016.
  8. Web site: Ben Lerner . Narrative Magazine . 2008-12-15. 2011-06-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20110714155631/http://www.narrativemagazine.com/authors/ben-lerner. 14 July 2011 . live.
  9. Web site: Ben Lerner Wins the Believer Book Award. 22 March 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20150103191145/http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/ben-lerner-wins-the-believer-book-award_b50967. 3 January 2015. dead.
  10. News: Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner – review . 2016-12-11 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20161121202411/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jul/05/leaving-atocha-station-ben-lerner . 2016-11-21 . The Guardian . 2012-07-05 . Dyer . Geoff .
  11. Web site: Emma Cline Wins Plimpton Prize; Ben Lerner Wins Terry Southern Prize. The Paris Review. The Paris Review. 22 March 2016. 2014-03-12.
  12. 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.
  13. News: Ben Lerner's 'The Topeka School' Revisits the Debates of the '90s. Hallberg. Garth Risk. 2019-10-03. The New York Times. 2019-10-05. en-US. 0362-4331.
  14. News: The 10 Best Books of 2019 . The New York Times . 22 November 2019 .
  15. Web site: Ben Lerner - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . 2013-04-12 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20130415120708/http://www.gf.org/fellows/17431-ben-lerner . 2013-04-15 .
  16. Web site: Moser, Whitehead, McDaniel, Grandin, Boyer, Brown Win 2020 Pulitzers . Maher . John . May 4, 2020 . . May 4, 2020.
  17. Javadizadeh . Kamran . Close Encounters . The New Yorker . 11 September 2023 . July 3, 2024.
  18. The 'angle of immunity': face and façade in Beckett's Film. 2008-04-16 . 10.1111/j.1467-8705.2008.00833.x . 50 . 3 . Critical Quarterly . 77–89. Gavin. Alice.
  19. The Drums of Marrakesh . Harper's Magazine . 2016-04-04 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20160502111102/http://harpers.org/archive/2016/03/the-drums-of-marrakesh/ . 2016-05-02 . March 2016 . McMorris . Mark .
  20. Web site: Brooklyn College English Department – MFA Faculty . Depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu . 2011-06-19 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110903101904/http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/graduate/mfa/faculty.htm . 2011-09-03 .
  21. Lerner . Ben . Harper's Magazine . The Hofmann Wobble: Wikipedia and the problem of historical memory . December 2023 . 347 . 2083 . 27–32 .
  22. Wikipedia and the assault on history . The Signpost . December 4, 2023 . 19 . 23 .
  23. Web site: FSG's Favorite Books of 2013. Work in Progress. 22 March 2016. 2013-12-19.
  24. http://www.english.pitt.edu/people/faculty/lerner.html "Ben Lerner"
  25. Web site: Acclaimed young poet Ben Lerner relocates to Pittsburgh. – Books – Book Reviews & Features – Pittsburgh City Paper . Pittsburghcitypaper.ws . 2011-06-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110614220242/http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A41054 . 14 June 2011 . live .
  26. Web site: National Book Award 2006 . Nationalbook.org . 2011-06-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110716154057/http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2006_p_lerner.html . 16 July 2011 . dead . dmy-all .
  27. Web site: Poetry Flash:NCBRAwards . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080513194652/http://www.poetryflash.org/NCBA.07.html . 2008-05-13 .
  28. Web site: New Fellows . Brown.edu . 2011-06-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110607053603/http://www.brown.edu/Divisions/Graduate_School/Howard_Foundation/NewFellows.html . 7 June 2011 . dead .
  29. Web site: Stadt Münster: Kulturamt – Lyrikertreffen . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20110617111018/http://www.muenster.de/stadt/kulturamt/lyrikertreffen.html . 17 June 2011 . 2011-06-19 . Muenster.de.
  30. News: Book Prizes – Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles Times . 2012-03-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170610035033/http://events.latimes.com/bookprizes/ . 2017-06-10 . dead .
  31. Web site: The New York Public Library's 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists Announced. 14 March 2012. Flavorwire. 22 March 2016.
  32. Web site: 2012 Saroyan Prize Shortlist . 2012-05-19 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120529050150/http://library.stanford.edu/saroyan/shortlistsrelease2012.html . 2012-05-29 .
  33. News: Finalist for the 2012 PEN/Bingham Award. Star Tribune.
  34. Web site: Last year's shortlist | James Tait Black Prizes . 2013-07-22 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20130429131942/http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/events/tait-black/shortlist . 2013-04-29 .
  35. Web site: Folio Prize shortlist includes Ben Lerner, Colm Toibin, Ali Smith . The Los Angeles Times. Carolyn. Kellogg. 2015-02-09 . 2014-11-26 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20161127041431/http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-folio-prize-shortlist-includes-ben-lerner-colm-toibin-ali-smith-20150209-story.html . 2016-11-27 .
  36. Web site: 2020 Pulitzer Prizes . 2023-11-30 . www.pulitzer.org . en.

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