''Grand Street'' was an American magazine published from 1981 to 2004. It was described by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' as "one of the most revered literary magazines of the postwar era."

Founding

''Grand Street'' was founded as a quarterly by

Ben Sonnenberg Benjamin "Ben" Sonnenberg, Jr. (December 30, 1936 – June 24, 2010) was an American publisher and the founder of the literary magazine '' Grand Street'', which he began as a quarterly journal in 1981. Sonnenberg was born on December 30, 1936, ...

in 1981. When

Jean Stein Jean Babette Stein (February 9, 1934 – April 30, 2017) was an American author and editor. Early life Stein was born to a Jewish family in Chicago. Her father was Jules C. Stein (1896–1981), co-founder of the Music Corporation of America (M ...

became editor and publisher in 1990, the magazine's format changed to encompass

visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...

, and it began actively to seek out international authors and artists to introduce to its readers.

Contributors

Contributors to ''Grand Street'' included

Andrew Cockburn Andrew Myles Cockburn ( ; born 7 January 1947) is a British journalist and the Washington, D.C., editor of ''Harper's Magazine''. Early life Born in the London suburb of Willesden in 1947, Cockburn grew up in County Cork, Ireland. His father ...

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, perf ...

, John Ashbery,

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...

William Eggleston William Eggleston (born July 27, 1939) is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium. Eggleston's books include ''William Eggleston's Guide'' (1976) and ''The ...

, William K. Everson, William H. Gass, Doug Henwood,

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...

, Dennis Hopper,

Kenzaburō Ōe is a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, i ...

, Jane Kramer,

David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and '' Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained cri ...

, Susan Minot,

Rick Moody Hiram Frederick Moody III (born October 18, 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel ''The Ice Storm'', a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 19 ...

, Michael Moore, Mark Rudman, Terence Kilmartin, Onat Kutlar, Michael Palmer,

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

, James Salter, W. G. Sebald,

David Shields David Shields is the author of twenty-four books, including '' Reality Hunger'' (which, in 2019, ''Lit Hub'' named one of the most important books of the past decade), ''The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead'' (a New York Times bes ...

Terry Southern Terry Southern (May 1, 1924 – October 29, 1995) was an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style. Part of the Paris postwar literary movement in the 1950s and a companion to ...

Saul Steinberg Saul Steinberg (June 15, 1914 – May 12, 1999) was a Romanian-American artist, best known for his work for ''The New Yorker'', most notably '' View of the World from 9th Avenue''. He described himself as "a writer who draws". Biography S ...

José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which hec ...

, Fiona Shaw,

Quentin Tarantino Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, dark humor, non-linear storylines, cameos, ensembl ...

William Trevor William Trevor Cox (24 May 1928 – 20 November 2016), known by his pen name William Trevor, was an Irish novelist, playwright, and short story writer. One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world, he is widely regarded as one of th ...

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...

Jeanette Winterson Jeanette Winterson (born 27 August 1959) is an English writer. Her first book, '' Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit'', was a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against convention. Other novels explore gender pola ...

and William T. Vollmann. In his memoir, ''Lost Property: Memoirs and Confessions of a Bad Boy,'' Grand Street founder

wrote that he published in the journal what he believed was the last work of Samuel Beckett: a poem called "What is the Word".

References

External links

Complete index of issues
at LibraryThing
Official site
archived at the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

Columbia University Archival Collections: Ben Sonnenberg Papers

Columbia University Archival Collections: Grand Street Publication Records
* 'Grand Street'' at Quarterly magazines published in the United States Defunct literary magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1981 Magazines disestablished in 2004 Magazines published in New York City {{US-lit-mag-stub