Daniel Genis

Daniel Genis (born August 2, 1978) is a Russian-American Journalist, Writer, and media person.

Early life and career

Daniel Genis was born in New York City to Alexander and Irina Genis, only a few months after their emigration from the Soviet Union, in 1977. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY.

His father, Alexander Genis is a Russian writer, broadcaster, and cultural critic. During the 1980s and 1990s, Genis's parents' apartment doubled as a clubhouse for Russian writers and artists. Genis was exposed to literature and the arts from a young age, mixing with artists and intellectuals, including Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, Umberto Eco, Norman Mailer, Joseph Brodsky, and Czech film director Miloš Forman.

The living room of his childhood home was where Daniel's father and his collaborators edited ''Семь дней'' (''Seven Days'') (a weekly literary supplement to '' Новое Русское Слово'') for a short time, but they achieved almost star status as the chief literary critics of the weekly newspaper ''Новый Американец''. Alexander Genis, Pyotr Vail, Sergei Dovlatov and Vagrich Bakhchanyan collaborated on a weekly emigre magazine which was later considered a hallmark of the early 80s because of its early publications of Eduard Limonov, Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin and Andrei Sinyavsky.

Genis graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1996, along with other prominent classmates such as Harry Siegel, Jessica Valenti, and Kelly Karbacz. He continued his education at New York University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in History and French in 1999. Genis also spent one year studying at the University of Copenhagen in 1999. Genis developed an interest during this time in antiquarian bookshops and specifically, eighteenth and nineteenth century editions of Greek and Roman classic literature.

While in college, Genis initially worked as an intern and then as an editorial assistant at the publishing house Applause Books, from 1997 to 1998. His tasks entailed setting manuscripts into digital versions and, after two years, Genis ended with an editing credit on ''The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film''. Moreover, Genis worked in the production team for the publication of American theatre and film book editor John A. Willis's ''Theatre World'' in 1997.

After graduating from NYU, Genis worked for Nancy Love as an agent-associate. This literary agency was on the Upper East Side; Genis's role entailed finding new authors to represent, although his literary interests did not match his employer's taste for self-help books. Genis and Nancy Love parted ways in 2001.

Arrest and incarceration

In 2001, Genis traded in his publishing career for a life of crime to feed a raging heroin appetite. His taste for the illegal substance (costing Genis $100 per day) led him to embark on a string of robberies in order to pay his debts. The month-long robbery spree centered around the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Gramercy Park, and the Financial District. Nicknamed the "apologetic bandit" by the press, Genis offered apologies to his victims as he took their cash and returned their wallets. His 18 robberies accounted for $700 in total.

During one week in 2003, Genis committed five robberies. In November of the same year, he was identified by one of his victims, arrested, and eventually convicted of five counts of armed robbery, for which he served 10 years in prison.

While serving his sentence, Genis spent four years in close proximity to American mass murderer Ronald DeFeo. Genis had not only shared with DeFeo the horror of substance addiction, but both hailed from Amityville as well. Since his release, Genis wrote an article for ''Vice'' Magazine, commenting on their interactions "inside". Genis currently has a bi-weekly column at ''Vice'', titled "In the Margins".

Genis has also collaborated with fellow drug addict and convict Michael Alig. In a 2014 interview with Genis, after being released on parole, Alig said that his time spent reading while in solitary inspired him to write his memoirs, which he titled ''Aligula'', and he particularly identified with the character Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky's ''Crime and Punishment''.

Genis's prison sentence granted him time to plan his literary career. In fact, Genis remarks that his authentic education as a reader and writer began not while he was a history major or working at a literary agency in Manhattan, but at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, New York; where Genis read 1,046 books. Genis kept a diary of his readings, numbering and annotating each entry. While exploring books that helped make sense of his situation, he spent most of his attention on serious fiction and, in particular, long-difficult novels. Genis read for practical knowledge and for the sake of his own sanity, reading an assortment of books ranging from incarceration memoirs by Malcolm X to classic literature written by James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Fyodor Dostoevsky and at his father's request, ''Ulysses''. Additionally, Genis read '' In Search of Lost Time'' alongside two academic guidebooks full of French notations and a dictionary, stating that no other novel gave him as much appreciation for his time in prison.

Genis continued work on his 300-page novel after spending $275 on a Swintec typewriter (with clear plastic cases allowing easy inspection for drugs, weapons, or other contraband. These typewriters are commonly found in prison). Genis's dystopian novel, titled ''Narcotica'', is based on the acceptance of narcotics in Western culture. It offers an alternate version of a society that had illicit drugs which become the legally or socially accepted inebriant of choice.

Additionally, Genis wrote thousands of letters and journal entries. The tri-lingual Genis was often given the task of translating from Russian to English, in exchange for commissary money. For instance, Genis was tasked to translate his father's work for the American publication ''Read Russia''.

Alongside his literary progression, Genis became an avid weightlifter. Since being released from prison, he has criticized the efforts of some US states to remove weights from prisons. He recently wrote about prison weightlifting and its benefits for'' Deadspin ''magazine. Additionally, Genis developed a taste for cooking and has since written on the topic of cooking in prison for the ''Daily Beast'' and the publication ''KCRW'', discussing the variable cooking opportunities depending on the security levels of one's prison.

Subsequent articles since his release, demonstrate Genis's interest in the influence of religion in prison, attributing the high numbers of religious inmates to a lack of education. Furthermore, he has reported extensively on the discriminatory nature of life in jail for Jewish inmates. Additionally, Genis has unpacked the realities of sexuality and masculinity for inmates with HuffPost Live's academic, journalist and author Marc Lamont Hill, American author and academic Mark Anthony Neal, and former inmate turned public speaker, author, and activist Shaun Attwood.

Post-prison works

After his release from prison, Genis was selected for representation by the Mary Evans literary agency. He sold his forthcoming memoirs, titled ''The Last Beat'', to Penguin Books

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