Ronald Sukenick (July 14, 1932 – July 22, 2004) was an American writer and

literary theorist Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mora ...

Life

Sukenick was born and raised in

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 ...

, where his father was a dentist. He graduated from

Midwood High School , motto_translation = The True, the Good, and the Beautiful , address = 2839 Bedford Avenue , city = Brooklyn , state = New York , zipcode = 11210 , country ...

and

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 tea ...

before receiving his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in English (with a dissertation on

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

) from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

in 1962. After

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popula ...

announced the "

death of the author "The Death of the Author" (French: ''La mort de l'auteur'') is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the intent ...

", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell, the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had "only forty fans, but they're all fanatics." He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". Beginning in 1956, he taught at Brandeis, Cornell, Hofstra University, the City College of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

and

Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3 Paul Valéry University of Montpellier (french: link=no, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III), also known as or UPVM (official acronym) or Montpellier III (UM3, until early 2015), is a French university in the Academy of Montpellier. It is ...

. His most prolonged teaching stint was at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

, where he was a professor of English from 1975 to 1999. While at Colorado, he served as director of creative writing until 1977 and as director of the publications center from 1986 to 1999. He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of the ''

American Book Review ''American Book Review'' is a literary journal operating out of the University of Houston-Victoria. Their mission statement is to “specialize in reviews of frequently neglected published works of fiction, poetry, and literary and cultural critic ...

'' and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now

Fiction Collective Two Fiction Collective Two (FC2) is an author-run, not-for-profit publisher of avant-garde, experimental fiction supported in part by the University of Utah, the University of Alabama, Central Michigan University, Illinois State University, private co ...

). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the National Book Critics C ...

. Hi
archive
resides at the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

Family

He was divorced from Lynn Luria ( Lynn Sukenick) in 1984. He lived with Julia Frey for many years, and they were formally married in 1992. Her book on

Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the l ...

is now a standard work. She collaborated on Sukenick's posthumously published story "For the Invisible, Against Thinking" set in Bali. He died from the muscular disease

inclusion body myositis Inclusion body myositis (IBM) () (sometimes called sporadic inclusion body myositis, sIBM) is the most common inflammatory muscle disease in older adults. The disease is characterized by slowly progressive weakness and wasting of both proximal ...

, in 2004.

Works

* * * * * * * * In Form : Digressions on the Act of Fiction (1985) * * * autobiography * *Degenerative Prose: Writing Beyond Category (1995) editor with Mark Amerika *In the Slipstream : An FC2 Reader (1999) editor with Curtis White * * * * Moving Ahead * *

Life

Family

Works

Criticism

References

External links

See also