Jeffrey Kent Eugenides (born March 8, 1960) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

and

short story writer A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: ''

The Virgin Suicides ''The Virgin Suicides'' is a 1993 debut novel by the American author Jeffrey Eugenides. The fictional story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers on the lives of five doomed sisters, the Lisbon girls. The novel is wr ...

'' (1993), ''

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

'' (2002), and''

The Marriage Plot ''The Marriage Plot'' is a 2011 novel by the American writer, Jeffrey Eugenides. The novel grew out of a manuscript that Eugenides began after the publication of his sophomore Pulitizer Prize-winning novel, ''Middlesex.'' Eugenides has stated tha ...

'' (2011). ''The Virgin Suicides'' served as the basis of a

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

, while ''Middlesex'' received the 2003

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

in addition to being a finalist for the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award ( ga, Duais Liteartha Idirnáisiúnta Bhaile Átha Chliath), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. ...

, and France's

Prix Médicis The Prix Médicis is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by and . It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match his talent." The award goes to a work of fiction in the French language. In 19 ...

Biography

Eugenides was born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

to a father of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

descent and a mother of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

ancestry. Eugenides is the youngest of three sons. He attended Grosse Pointe's private

University Liggett School University Liggett School, also known as Liggett, is a private, independent, secular school in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1878, it is Michigan's oldest independent coeducational day school. The school teaches grade ...

and then

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

(where he became friends with contemporary

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 ...

). He graduated from Brown in 1982 after taking a year off to travel across Europe and volunteer with

Mother Teresa Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, MC (; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa ( sq, Nënë Tereza), was an Indian-Albanian Catholic nun who, in 1950, founded the Missionaries of Charity. Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu () was bo ...

Calcutta, India Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

. Of his decision to study at Brown, Eugenides remarked "I chose Brown largely in order to study with John Hawkes, whose work I admired. I entered the honors program in English, which forced me to study the entire English tradition, beginning with ''Beowulf''. I felt that since I was going to try to add to the tradition, I had better know something about it." In 1986, he earned an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in English and

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Eugenides knew he wanted to be a writer from a relatively early age, stating "I decided very early; during my junior year of high school. We read ''

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A ''Künstlerroman'' written in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce's fictional alter ...

'' that year, and it had a big effect on me, for reasons that seem quite amusing to me now. I'm half Irish and half Greek—my mother's family were Kentuckians, Southern hillbillies, and my paternal grandparents immigrants from

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

—and, for that reason, I identified with

Stephen Dedalus Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographic novel of artistic existence ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' (1916) and an important character in Joyce' ...

. Like me, he was bookish, good at academics, and possessed an "absurd name, an ancient Greek." ..I do remember thinking ..that to be a writer was the best thing a person could be. It seemed to promise maximum alertness to life. It seemed holy to me, and almost religious." Of his earliest literary influences, Eugenides has cited " ..the great

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

s. Joyce,

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

. From these I went on to discover

Musil Musil (feminine Musilová) is a Czech surname, which means "he had to", from the past tense of the Czech word ''musit'' (must).''Dictionary of American Family Names''"Musil Family History" Oxford University Press, 2013. Retrieved on 9 January 2016. ...

Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

, and others, and soon my friends and I were reading Pynchon and

John Barth John Simmons Barth (; born May 27, 1930) is an American writer who is best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include ''The Sot-Weed Factor'', a ...

. My generation grew up backward. We were weaned on experimental writing before ever reading much of the nineteenth-century literature the

s and

postmodernist Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

s were reacting against." Eugenides was raised in Detroit, Michigan and cites the influence of the city and his high-school experiences on his writings. He has said that he has "a perverse love" of his birthplace. "I think most of the major elements of American history are exemplified in Detroit, from the triumph of the automobile and the assembly line to the blight of racism, not to mention the music,

Motown Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...

, the

MC5 MC5, also commonly called The MC5, is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1963. The original line-up consisted of Rob Tyner (vocals) Wayne Kramer (guitar), Fred "Sonic" Smith (guitar), Michael Davis (bass), and Dennis ...

, house, techno." He also says he has been haunted by the decline of Detroit. In 1986, he received the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...

Nicholl Fellowship The Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting is a fellowship program founded in 1986 to aid screenwriters. It is administered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. History Gee Nicholl, widow of producer Don Nicholl, worked w ...

for his story "Here Comes Winston, Full of the Holy Spirit." After living a few years in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, he moved to

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and worked as secretary for the

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

. While in New York he made friends with numerous similarly struggling writers, including

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 ...

. From 1999 to 2004, Eugenides lived in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, Germany, where he moved after being awarded a grant from the

German Academic Exchange Service The German Academic Exchange Service, or DAAD (german: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), was founded in 1925 and is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation. Organisation ''DAAD'' is a ...

to write in Berlin for a year. Eugenides lived in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

, since the fall of 2007, when he joined the faculty of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

's Program in Creative Writing. Of teaching creative writing, Eugenides remarked in an interview with ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'', "I tell my students that when you write, you should pretend you're writing the best letter you ever wrote to the smartest friend you have. That way, you'll never dumb things down. You won't have to explain things that don't need explaining. You'll assume an intimacy and a natural shorthand, which is good because readers are smart and don't wish to be condescended to. I think about the reader. I care about the reader. Not "audience." Not "readership." Just the reader." In 2018, Eugenides joined New York University's Creative Writing Program as a tenured full professor and the Lewis and Loretta Glucksman Professor in American Letters. Eugenides met his former wife, photographer and sculptor Karen Yamauchi, at the MacDowell artist's program. They got married in 1995 and later had a daughter named Georgia Eugenides.

Career

''The Virgin Suicides''

Eugenides' 1993 novel, ''The Virgin Suicides'', has been translated into 34 languages. In 1999, the novel was adapted into a critically acclaimed film directed by

Sofia Coppola Sofia Carmina Coppola (; born May 14, 1971) is an American filmmaker and actress. The youngest child and only daughter of filmmakers Eleanor Coppola, Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, she made her film debut as an infant in her father's acclaimed ...

. Set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the novel follows the lives and deaths by suicide of five sisters over the course of an increasingly isolated year, as told from the point of view of the neighborhood boys who obsessively watch them.

1996–2001

Eugenides published short stories in the nine years between ''The Virgin Suicides'' and ''Middlesex'', primarily in ''

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 ...

''. His 1996 story "Baster" became the basis for the 2010 romantic comedy '' The Switch'', temporarily putting ''Middlesex'' aside in the late '90s to begin work on a novel that would eventually serve as the basis for his third. Two excerpts of what became Eugenides's work-in-progress third novel after ''Middlesex'' also appeared in ''The New Yorker'' in 2011, "Asleep in the Lord" and "Extreme Solitude." Eugenides also served as the editor of the collection of short stories titled ''My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead''. The proceeds of the collection go to the writing center

826 Chicago 826 National is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping students, ages 6–18, improve their expository and creative writing skills at eight locations across the United States. The chapters include 826 Valencia in San Francisco, 826NYC i ...

, established to encourage young people's writing.

''Middlesex''

His 2002 novel, ''Middlesex'', won the 2003

in addition to being a finalist for the

, and France's

. Following the life and self-discovery of Calliope Stephanides, or later, Cal, an intersex person raised a girl, but genetically a boy, ''Middlesex'' also broadly deals with the

Greek-American Greek Americans ( el, Ελληνοαμερικανοί ''Ellinoamerikanoí'' ''Ellinoamerikánoi'' ) are Americans of full or partial Greek ancestry. The lowest estimate is that 1.2 million Americans are of Greek descent while the highest es ...

immigrant experience in the United States, the rise and fall of Detroit, and explores the experience of an

intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...

person in the U.S.A.

''The Marriage Plot''

After a nine-year hiatus, Eugenides published his third novel, ''The Marriage Plot'', in October 2011. The novel follows three young adults enmeshed in a love triangle, as they graduate from Brown University and establish themselves in the world. Eugenides is currently at work developing a television screenplay of the novel, which was a finalist of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2011; a ''New York Times'' notable book for 2011; and one of the top books of the year according to lists made by ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'', ''Kirkus Reviews'', and ''The Telegraph''.

''Fresh Complaint'' and fourth novel

In 2017, Eugenides published '' Fresh Complaint'', a collection of short stories written between 1988 and 2017. He described the work as "a very mixed bag of stories, quite different, not all arranged around a certain theme". He has suggested that a fourth novel will be published at an unspecified future date: "I have an idea; I don't know if it's going to work. But it's going to be a larger canvas, many more characters than in 'The Marriage Plot'' Again, I'm going to respond to a very small directive. It's going to be written, well, I'm not going to say — but I know how it's going to be written and what the structure's going to be, and it's going to be quite different than ''The Marriage Plot.''"

Awards and honors

*1986

Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting The Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting is a fellowship program founded in 1986 to aid screenwriters. It is administered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. History Gee Nicholl, widow of producer Don Nicholl, worked wi ...

(Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) *1991

Aga Khan Prize for Fiction The Aga Khan Prize for Fiction was awarded by the editors of ''The Paris Review'' for what they deem to be the best short story published in the magazine in a given year. The last prize was given in 2004. No applications were accepted. The winner ...

for "The Virgin Suicides" hort story(''The Paris Review'') *1993 Whiting Award *1994

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

*1994 & 1996 MacDowell Fellowship *1995 Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award (American Academy of Arts and Letters) *2000–2001 Berlin Prize Fellow (American Academy in Berlin) *2002

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

(for ''Middlesex'') *2003 ''Welt''-Literaturpreis *2004

International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award ( ga, Duais Liteartha Idirnáisiúnta Bhaile Átha Chliath), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. ...

shortlist (for ''Middlesex'') *2011

Salon Book Award ''Salon'' is an American Progressivism in the United States, politically progressive/Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on Politics of the United States, U.S. politics ...

(for ''The Marriage Plot'') *2011 ''New York Times'' 100 Notable Books of 2011 list (for ''The Marriage Plot'') *2012

longlist (for ''The Marriage Plot'') *2013 Named a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

*2013 Fitzgerald Prize (for "The Marriage Plot") - French prize rewards a novel, or a new French-language or translated in English reflecting the elegance, wit, style and taste of the lifestyle of the American writer

F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...

. * 2014 Awarded honorary Doctorate of Letters from

* 2018 Inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

Works

Novels

* ''

'' New York : Hachette Book Group, 1993. , * ''

'' New York, New York : Random House, 2002. ,

* ''

'' London : Fourth Estate, 2011. ,

Short story collections

* '' Fresh Complaint'' New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017. , . Contains 10 short stories: ** "Complainers" (2017) ** "Air Mail" (1996) ** "Baster" (The New Yorker, 1996) ** "Early Music" (The New Yorker, 2005) ** "Timeshare" ** "Find the Bad Guy" (The New Yorker, 2013) ** "The Oracular Vulva" (1999) ** "Capricious Gardens" (The Gettysburg Review, 1988) ** "Great Experiment" (The New Yorker, 2008) ** "Fresh Complaint" (2017)

Short stories

Uncollected short stories. * (Subscription Required) * "A Genetic History of My Grandparents" (The New Yorker, 1997) * "The Burning of Smyrna" (The New Yorker, 1998) * "Ancient Myths" (The Spatial Uncanny, James Casebere, Sean Kelly Gallery, 2001) * "The Obscure Object" (The New Yorker, 2002) * "Extreme Solitude" (The New Yorker, 2010) * "Asleep in the Lord" (The New Yorker, 2011) * "Bronze" (The New Yorker, 2018)

References

External links

Jeffrey Eugenides
Princeton University Creative Writing Program
Articles by Jeffrey Eugenides on the 5th Estate blog

Works by Jeffrey Eugenides on The New Yorker"Great Experiment"
''The New Yorker'', 31 March 2008
Read "Extreme Solitude" story in New Yorker
*
Profile at The Whiting Foundation

2012 Whiting Writers' Award Keynote Speech
;Interviews
Video of Eugenides with Salman Rushdie, "LIVE", New York Public Library
June 27, 2008
Video of Eugenides with Daniel Kehlmann
''PEN World Voices'', May 4, 2008
''Fresh Air'', "Interview with Terry Gross", WHYY, aired on 2002-09-24
*

''3am Magazine'', 2003
Salon.com interview
''Guardian Unlimited'' Books
Editor & Author, Jonathan Galassi and Jeffrey Eugenides
"Works in Progress", 21 July 2010
A Conversation with Jeffrey Eugenides
"Oprah", 5 June 2007
Nine Years After Middlesex
"Wall Street Journal", 30 September 2011

"LA Times", 29 October 2011
Marriage, plot and Jeffrey Eugenides
– 2012 Brisbane Writers Festival – (Interview and Q&A) – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Jeffrey Eugenides: The Excitement of Writing
– 2012

Louisiana Literature festival Louisiana Literature Festival is an annual literary festival which takes place around the third weekend of August at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 35 km (22 mi) north of Copenhagen, Denmark. The festival began in 2010, and each year it featur ...

– Video by

Louisiana Channel Louisiana Channel is a non-profit web-TV channel based at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. By the end of the first year, 28 November 2013, Louisiana Channel had published 130 videos featuring international artists, film m ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Eugenides, Jeffrey 1960 births 20th-century American essayists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American essayists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American short story writers American cultural critics American historical novelists American male essayists American male non-fiction writers American male novelists American male short story writers American people of English descent American people of Irish descent American satirists American social commentators American writers of Greek descent American writers of Irish descent Brown University alumni Living people Novelists from Michigan Novelists from New Jersey People from Detroit Princeton University faculty Psychological fiction writers Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners Social critics Stanford University alumni MacDowell Colony fellows Surrealist writers Writers about activism and social change Writers from Detroit Writers of historical fiction set in the modern age Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters