''Chicago Review'' is a

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...

founded in 1946 and published quarterly in the Humanities Division at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. The magazine features contemporary poetry, fiction, and criticism, often publishing works in translation and special features in double issues. Three stories published in ''Chicago Review'' have won the

O. Henry Award The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry. The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty best ...

. Work that first appeared in ''Chicago Review'' has also been reprinted in ''

The Best American Poetry 2002 ''The Best American Poetry 2002'', a volume in '' The Best American Poetry series'', was edited by David Lehman, with poems chosen by guest editor Robert Creeley. The first print run for the book was 30,000. Amy Bracken Sparks, reviewing the boo ...

'', ''

The Best American Poetry 2004 ''The Best American Poetry 2004'', a volume in '' The Best American Poetry series'', was edited by general editor David Lehman. The guest editor for the year was Lyn Hejinian. Hejinian, a "partisan of the Language School and the New York poets", a ...

'', and '' The Best American Short Stories 2003''.

Early history

''Chicago Review'' was founded in 1946 by two

graduate students, James Radcliffe Squires and Carrolyn Dillard, in response to what they described as "an exaggerated utilitarianism on the college." They aimed to present a "contemporary standard of good writing" and demanded "that the writers do better than they thought they could." ''Chicago Review'' exclusively published work by students and faculty members of the university until the Fall/Winter issue of 1953, when F.N. "Chip" Karmtaz assumed editorship of the magazine.

Beat poetry censorship controversy

Before censorship by the university administration, ''Chicago Review'' was an early and leading promoter of the

Beat Movement The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatione ...

in American literature. In the autumn of 1958, it published an excerpt from Burroughs' ''

Naked Lunch ''Naked Lunch'' (sometimes ''The Naked Lunch'') is a 1959 novel by American writer William S. Burroughs. The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes, intended by Burroughs to be read in any order. The reader follows the narr ...

'', which was judged

obscene An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be use ...

by the ''

Chicago Daily News The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. History The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...

'' and sparked public outcry; this episode led to the censorship of the following issue, to which the editors responded by resigning and starting a new magazine in which to freely publish Beat fiction. ''Chicago Review'' became the subject of further controversy in 1959, when the

prohibited editor Irving Rosenthal from publishing a winter issue that was to include

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

's ''Sebastian Midnite'', a thirty-page excerpt from William S. Burroughs's ''

'' and a thirty-page work by

Edward Dahlberg Edward Dahlberg (July 22, 1900 – February 27, 1977) was an American novelist, essayist, and autobiographer. Background Edward Dahlberg was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Elizabeth Dahlberg. Together, mother and son led a vagabond existence ...

. The concern of the university was that the work might be deemed obscene. All but one editor quit the paper. Rosenthal, Ginsberg,

John Fles Michael John Fles (born 11 November 1936), known both as John Fles and Michael Fles, is an American poet, editor, musician and film personality. Professor David James referred to him as "the single most important promoter of underground film" i ...

, and others responded by founding '' Big Table''; its first issue included ten chapters of ''Naked Lunch''. In the context of the ongoing nationwide conflict between traditional versus Beat fiction, the impact of the creation of ''Big Table'' was such that, as

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

recalled "'what happened at Chicago' became shorthand for some unimaginable subversive threat" among the literature college students at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

Special Features

''Chicago Review'' often publishes special features within its issues. In the summer of 1958, it published Volume 12, Number 3 (Issue 12:3) with a special section titled "On Zen" that featured contributions from writers such as

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

and

. Through this issue, ''Chicago Review'' played a significant role in introducing

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

to the American public.Josephine Nock-Hee Park, ''Apparitions of Asia: modernist form and Asian American poetics'', p. 63 Most of the magazine's special features are included in double issues, the first of which was Issue 17:2/3 in 1964. Featuring new Chicago writing and art, the issue included work by poets such as Paul Carroll and

Lucien Stryk Lucien Stryk (April 7, 1924 - January 24, 2013) was an American poet, translator of Buddhist literature and Zen poetry, and former English professor at Northern Illinois University (NIU). Biography Stryk was born in Poland on April 7, 1924, and ...

. Later double issues, such as Issue 38:01/02, ''Contemporary Indian Literatures'' (1992) and Issue 46:3/4, ''New Polish Writing'' (2000), established ''Chicago Review'' as a premier literary magazine for publishing literary translations. Issue 60:3,'' The Infrarrealistas'' (2017), is the first collection of the Infrarealist poets’ Spanish writing in English translation. Other notable features published by ''Chicago Review'' include a special section on Canadian poet

Lisa Robertson Lisa Robertson (born July 22, 1961) is a Canadian poet, essayist and translator. She lives in France. Life and work Born in Toronto, Ontario, Robertson moved to British Columbia in 1979, first living on Saltspring Island, then in Vancouver, wh ...

in Issue 51:4/52:1, an

A.R. Ammons Archibald Randolph Ammons (February 18, 1926 – February 25, 2001) was an American poet who won the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1973 and 1993. Poetic themes Ammons wrote about humanity's relationship to nature in alternately comic ...

feature in Issue 57:1/2, and a special issue on

Ed Roberson Ed Roberson (born 1939) is an American poet. Life Roberson was born and raised in Pittsburgh and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970, and later completed graduate work at Goddard College. He then served as a faculty member in th ...

and Chicago Modernists, Issue 59:4/60:1. ''Chicago Review'' occasionally also publishes triple issues, such as Issue 50:2/3/4, which includes a centenary portfolio on

Louis Zukofsky Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was an American poet. He was the primary instigator and theorist of the so-called "Objectivist" poets, a short lived collective of poets who after several decades of obscurity would reemerge a ...

, and Issue 49:3/4 & 50:1, which contains a special section on poet

Edward Dorn Edward Merton Dorn (April 2, 1929 – December 10, 1999, aged 70) was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets. His most famous work is '' ''Gunslinger'. Overview Dorn was born in Villa Grove, Illinois. ...

Notable Contributors

Many well-known writers have been published in ''Chicago Review'', both before and after they became famous. Notably,

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophicall ...

and

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

's work appeared in print for the first time in ''Chicago Review'' while they were both students at the University of Chicago. Other contributors include

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 11, 1903 – January 14, 1977; , ) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the d ...

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; born May 9, 1938), known as Charles Simic, is a Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the ''Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for ''The World Doesn't ...

, James Tate,

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

Raymond Carver Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s. Early life Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mi ...

, Philip Levine,

Anne Carson Anne Carson (born June 21, 1950) is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, classicist, and professor. Trained at the University of Toronto, Carson has taught classics, comparative literature, and creative writing at universities across the Unit ...

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Early life Moore was born in Kirkwood, ...

E.E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

, and Robert Duncan.

References

External links