Brian Hall (born August 31, 1959) is an American author.

Education

He attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

from 1977 to 1981, graduating summa cum laude with an A.B. in English Literature.

Career

From 1982 to 1984, Hall bicycled through western and eastern Europe, camping out most of the time. Based on his experiences in Eastern Europe, Hall wrote his first book, ''Stealing From a Deep Place'' (published by Hill and Wang, 1988), which was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. His first novel, ''The Dreamers'' (Harper and Row, 1989), tells the story of an American graduate student studying the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, who gets into a rather tortured affair with an Austrian woman and her young, fatherless son. Hall's other novels include ''The Saskiad'' (Houghton-Mifflin, 1997); ''I Should Be Extremely Happy In Your Company'' (Viking, 2003); and ''Fall of Frost'' (Viking, 2008). ''The Saskiad'', a

coming-of-age novel In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is imp ...

about a precocious and imaginative young girl, has been translated into 12 languages. ''I Should Be Extremely Happy In Your Company'' was named one of the best novels of the year by ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', ''Salon'' Magazine, the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', and ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...

''. ''Fall of Frost'' was named one of the best novels of the year by ''The Boston Globe'' and ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. Additional nonfiction works by Hall include: ''The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia'' (Godine, 1994) and ''Madeleine's World: A Biography of a Three-Year-Old'' (Houghton-Mifflin, 1997). For ''The Impossible Country'', Hall learned

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...

, and traveled several times to

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

over a three-year period, from 1989-1991. ''Madeleine's World'' is a novelist's take on the ideas of

Jean Piaget Jean William Fritz Piaget (, , ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called " genetic epistemolog ...

, the Swiss developmental psychologist who based many of his theories on observations of his own children. Hall, by watching his own daughter's development over three years, wrote a book speculating on what the growth of human consciousness might look like from the inside. In 2019, ''Madeleine's World'' was ranked by ''Slate'' as one of the 50 greatest nonfiction works of the past 25 years. He has written for publications such as ''The New York Times Magazine'' and ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', though since 1997, he has dedicated himself exclusively to writing his own books.

Bibliography

Novels

* ''The Dreamers'' (Harper and Row, 1989) * ''The Saskiad'' (Houghton-Mifflin, 1997) * ''I Should Be Extremely Happy In Your Company'' (Viking, 2003) * ''Fall of Frost'' (Viking, 2008) * ''The Stone Loves the World'' (Viking, 2021)

Non-fiction

* ''Stealing From a Deep Place'' (Hill and Wang, 1988) * ''The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia'' (Godine, 1994) * ''Madeleine's World: A Biography of a Three-Year-Old'' (Houghton-Mifflin, 1997)

Personal life

Son of Louis Alton Hall and Peggy Smith Hall, Hall grew up in Lexington,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. He lives in

Ithaca Ithaca most commonly refers to: *Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey'' *Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca *Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College Ithaca, Ithaka ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. In addition to being an author, he is also an amateur pianist and cellist. He has two daughters, Madeleine and Cora.

References

*https://web.archive.org/web/20110717110705/http://www.bogpriser.dk/work-807493-impossible-country/ *http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/features/2008/holiday-guide/gifts/best-books-of-2008/index.html *http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2008/12/07/getting_the_goods___fiction/ *http://groups.colgate.edu/cwc/staff/brian.html *https://web.archive.org/web/20080503192405/http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/01/10/fiction_2003/index1.html *http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2003/12/07/2003_a_road_map_to_the_best___fiction/ *http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pdf/library/ja04awar.pdf *http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=1549 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Brian 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists 1959 births Living people Harvard University alumni American travel writers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers