Joanna Rakoff (born May 8, 1972) is an American novelist and memoirist.
Early life
Rakoff was born in
Nyack, New York
Nyack () is a Village (New York), village located primarily in the Town (New York), town of Orangetown, New York, Orangetown in Rockland County, New York, Rockland County, New York (state), New York, United States. Incorporated in 1872, it retai ...
in 1972.
[Joanna Rakoff Interview](_blank)
''The Bookseller'' 8 April 2014, Retrieved 24 June 2015
Education
Between 1990 and 1994, Rakoff studied English literature at
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...
in Ohio. Between 1994 and 1995, she completed an MA in English literature at
UCL in London.
In 1996 and 1997, she did a year of Ph.D. coursework in English literature at CUNY Graduate Center, before dropping out to study writing at Columbia University, where she completed her MFA in 1998.
Life and career
In 1996, aged 23, Rakoff took a job at one of New York’s oldest literary agencies,
Harold Ober
Harold Ober (1881–1959) was an American literary agent.
In 1907 — two years after graduating from Harvard with a degree in literature — Harold Ober became a literary agent at the Paul R. Reynolds Literary Agency. By 1908 he was representing ...
Associates. Unbeknownst to Rakoff, the agency looked after the interests of the notoriously reclusive writer
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving in World War II, by publishing several short stories in '' ...
. In her time at the agency Rakoff's responsibilities included responding to the large volume of fan mail that Salinger received. Rakoff was instructed to respond with a generic response that explained that Salinger did not read fan mail. But she found herself moved by the letters and began writing personal responses to their letters. Her period at the agency coincided with Salinger's aborted publication of the short story "
Hapworth 16, 1924 "Hapworth 16, 1924" is a short story by the American author J. D. Salinger, the last original work published in his lifetime. It appeared in the June 19, 1965, edition of ''The New Yorker'', infamously taking up almost the entire magazine. It is th ...
". Rakoff's experiences with the agency and her encounters with Salinger himself would later be recounted in her memoir of her time at the literary agency, ''My Salinger Year'' (2014).
Rakoff's first novel ''A Fortunate Age'' was published in 2009. It received largely positive reviews and was included on many Best of 2009 lists, including NPR, Elle and Booklist, and was awarded the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers, an award previously won by Gary Shteyngart, Nathan Englander, and Laura Vapnyar. The novel was a ''San Francisco Chronicle'' Best Seller and was published in France by Presses de la Cité.
In 2010, Rakoff created a radio documentary about Salinger and his fan mail for
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
, entitled ''Hey Mr Salinger''. Before the documentary aired, the script was circulated in the British publishing industry; an editor read it and got in contact with Rakoff, encouraging her to expand the script into a memoir about her time working for the agency. This memoir became Rakoff's second book; entitled ''My Salinger Year'', it was published in 2014 to broad critical acclaim.
It was picked by ''The Guardians
Rachel Cooke
Rachel Cooke (born 1969) is a British journalist and writer.
Early life
Cooke was born in Sheffield, and is the daughter of a university lecturer.
She went to school in Jaffa, Israel, until she was 11, before returning to Sheffield, and atten ...
as one of the best books of 2014. The memoir has been published in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, India, Australia, and the UK. In France, it was a finalist for the Elle Prix de Lectrices. In the Netherlands, it was a finalist for the WIZO Prize.
The book was turned into a 2020 Canadian
film of the same name starring
Margaret Qualley
Sarah Margaret Qualley (born October 23, 1994) is an American actress and model. A daughter of actress Andie MacDowell, she trained as a ballerina in her youth. She made her acting debut with a minor role in the 2013 drama film ''Palo Alto'', a ...
as Rakoff and
Sigourney Weaver
Susan Alexandra "Sigourney" Weaver (; born October 8, 1949) is an American actress. A figure in science fiction and popular culture, she has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Gram ...
as her boss, directed by
Philippe Falardeau
Philippe Falardeau (born February 1, 1968 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter.
Early life
Falardeau was born and raised in Hull, Quebec. He later studied political science at the University of Ottawa, before travellin ...
. It opened the
70th Berlin International Film Festival
The 70th annual Berlin International Film Festival took place from 20 February to 1 March 2020. It was the first under the leadership of new Berlin Film Festival heads, business administration director Mariette Rissenbeek and artistic director C ...
. The film had its first theatrical release in Australia in January 2021. In March 2021, it opened in the U.S., where it was released by IFC, followed by a May 2021 release in the UK, and releases around the world.
Prior to publishing ''A Fortunate Age'', Rakoff worked as a freelance literary journalist and critic, contributing frequently to the ''Los Angeles Times'', the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, the Guardian, and the New York Times, as well as magazines like Vogue, Marie Claire, and O; The Oprah Magazine. For many years, she served as a contributing editor for the literary trade magazine Poets & Writers, where she wrote a long-running column featuring debut writers entitled "First," as well as profiles of writers such as
T.C. Boyle
Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, also known as T. C. Boyle and T. Coraghessan Boyle (born December 2, 1948), is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published sixteen novels and more than 100 short stories. He won the ...
and
Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel ''The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Pr ...
. In 2004, she became the books editor of a new online arts and culture magazine, Tablet, then known as Nextbook. In 2005, she was promoted to features editor, and from 2006-2008, she served as editor-in-chief.
Rakoff is currently under contract with Little, Brown for a new memoir, ''The Fifth Passenger'', which excavates a difficult family secret. The story of this memoir is recounted o
the 10/21/2019 episode of Dani Shapiro's podcast Family Secrets.
She regularly contributes book reviews to ''
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 ...
'', 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 ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
''.
[Bio , Joanna Rakoff](_blank)
joannarakoff.com, Retrieved 28 June 2015
Personal life
Rakoff lives in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
with her husband, the compose
Keeril Makana professor at MIT She has three children.
[https://freedom.to/blog/joanna-rakoff-finding-the-courage-confidence-clarity-of-mind-to-become-a-best-selling-author/]
Bibliography
*''A Fortunate Age''. New York:
Scribner, 2009. .
*''My Salinger Year''. New York:
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
, 2014. .
References
External links
Joanna Rakoff Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rakoff, Joanna
1972 births
Living people
People from Nyack, New York
Journalists from New York (state)
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American women writers
American women journalists
American women novelists
21st-century American memoirists
American women memoirists
Oberlin College alumni
Alumni of University College London