Adam Gopnik
Encyclopedia
Adam Gopnik, is an American writer, essayist and commentator. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker
—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir and criticism—and as the author of the essay collection Paris to the Moon
, an account of five years that Gopnik, his wife Martha, and son Luke, spent in the French capital.
, but was raised in Montreal
, Quebec
. Gopnik's parents, Irwin and Myrna Gopnik
, served as professors at McGill University
, from which Gopnik received his Bachelor of Arts degree. While there, he was a contributor for The McGill Daily
. He completed graduate work at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts
.
with a piece that would show his future range, a consideration of connections between baseball, childhood, and Renaissance art. He has written for four editors at the magazine: William Shawn
, Robert Gottlieb
, Tina Brown
, and David Remnick
.
dispatched him to Paris
to write the "Paris Journals", in which he described life in that city. These essays were later collected and published by Random House
in Paris to the Moon
, after Gopnik returned to New York City in 2000. The book became a New York Times bestseller.
curated the famous 1990 High/Low show at New York's Museum of Modern Art
. He later wrote an article for Search Magazine on the connection between religion and art and the compatibility of Christianity and Darwinism. He states in the article that the arts of human history are products of religious thought and that human conduct is not guaranteed by religion or secularism.
, a child psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley
(author of The Scientist in the Crib, UK title: How Babies Think).
, about Oliver, an American boy living in Paris
, who is mistaken for a mystical king and stumbles upon an ancient battle waged between Window Wraiths and the malicious Master of Mirrors. A book on Abraham Lincoln
and Charles Darwin
, called Angels And Ages, was published in January 2009. In 2010 Hyperion Books published children's fantasy novel "The Steps Across the Water" which chronicles the adventures of a young girl, Rose, in U Nork. In 2011 Gopnik was chosen as the noted speaker for the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Massey Lectures
where he delivered five lecture across five Canadian cities on his book Winter: Five Windows on the Season
.
, Gopnik has been honored with three National Magazine Awards for Essay
and Criticism
, and a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. His entry on the culture
of the United States
is featured in the Encyclopædia Britannica
.
Adam Gopnik recently wrote and presented BBC Four
's Lighting Up New York, a cultural journey through the recent history of New York
.
Adam Gopnik is the 11th annual recipient of the Westport Public Library's Booked for the Evening award. Previous award winners include Tom Brokaw
, E.L. Doctorow, Calvin Trillin, Wendy Wasserstein, Pete Hamill, Martin Scorsese, Arthur Mitchell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Halberstam, and Oscar Hijuelos. Booked for the Evening is the Westport Public Library's annual gala fund raising event. The Library awards an honoree whose work reflects the purpose of the Library—to nurture the love of learning and to enhance our understanding of the world. The funds raised enable the Library to continue to serve as a major community center for the 1600 people a day who walk through its doors.
Gopnik also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18.
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir and criticism—and as the author of the essay collection Paris to the Moon
Paris to the Moon
Paris to the Moon is a book of essays by The New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik. The essays detail life in Paris, France by a North American transplant and explain the difference in culture, including the differences in physical fitness attitudes .Another essay called "The Rookie" details...
, an account of five years that Gopnik, his wife Martha, and son Luke, spent in the French capital.
Background and education
Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, but was raised in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. Gopnik's parents, Irwin and Myrna Gopnik
Myrna Gopnik
Myrna Gopnik is a Professor Emerita of Linguistics at McGill University. She is known for her discovery of the FOXP2 gene through research on the KE family, an English family with several members affected by specific language impairment...
, served as professors at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, from which Gopnik received his Bachelor of Arts degree. While there, he was a contributor for The McGill Daily
The McGill Daily
The McGill Daily is a campus newspaper created and run by students of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The paper was first published in 1911.The paper was originally published daily, but is now issued twice a week...
. He completed graduate work at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts
New York University Institute of Fine Arts
The Institute of Fine Arts is one of the 14 divisions of New York University . It offers a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy, the Advanced Certificate in Conservation of Works of Art, and the Certificate in Curatorial Studies...
.
Early years
In 1986, Gopnik began his long professional association with The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
with a piece that would show his future range, a consideration of connections between baseball, childhood, and Renaissance art. He has written for four editors at the magazine: William Shawn
William Shawn
William Shawn was an American magazine editor who edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987.-Education and Early Life:...
, Robert Gottlieb
Robert Gottlieb
Robert Adams Gottlieb , is an American writer and editor. From 1987 to 1992 he was the editor of The New Yorker.-Personal:Robert Gottlieb was born in New York City in 1931 and grew up in Manhattan...
, Tina Brown
Tina Brown
Tina Brown, Lady Evans, CBE , is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. Born a British citizen, she took United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair...
, and David Remnick
David Remnick
David Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and magazine editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age in 2000...
.
Paris and "Paris Journal"
In 1995, The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
dispatched him to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to write the "Paris Journals", in which he described life in that city. These essays were later collected and published by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
in Paris to the Moon
Paris to the Moon
Paris to the Moon is a book of essays by The New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik. The essays detail life in Paris, France by a North American transplant and explain the difference in culture, including the differences in physical fitness attitudes .Another essay called "The Rookie" details...
, after Gopnik returned to New York City in 2000. The book became a New York Times bestseller.
Interest in Arts
Gopnik studied art history and with his friend Kirk VarnedoeKirk Varnedoe
John Kirk Train Varnedoe was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia and was an American art historian and writer, a Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a noted curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.-Life:He studied...
curated the famous 1990 High/Low show at New York's Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. He later wrote an article for Search Magazine on the connection between religion and art and the compatibility of Christianity and Darwinism. He states in the article that the arts of human history are products of religious thought and that human conduct is not guaranteed by religion or secularism.
Personal life
Gopnik lives in New York with his wife, Martha Parker, and two children, Luke and Olivia, (and his dog Butterscotch and bird Skyler). His five siblings include Blake Gopnik, the Washington Post art critic, and Alison GopnikAlison Gopnik
Alison Gopnik , daughter of Myrna Gopnik, is an American Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her work in the areas of cognitive and language development, specializing in causal learning and theory of mind...
, a child psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
(author of The Scientist in the Crib, UK title: How Babies Think).
Books
In addition to 2000's Paris to the Moon, Random House also published the author's reflections on life in New York, and particularly on the comedy of parenting, Through the Children's Gate, in 2006. (As in the earlier memoir, much of the material had appeared previously in The New Yorker.) In 2005 Hyperion Books published his children's novel The King in the WindowThe King in the Window
The King in the Window is a children's novel written by American author Adam Gopnik. Published in 2005 by Hyperion Books, the novel is about an American boy named Oliver who lives in Paris...
, about Oliver, an American boy living in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, who is mistaken for a mystical king and stumbles upon an ancient battle waged between Window Wraiths and the malicious Master of Mirrors. A book on Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
and Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, called Angels And Ages, was published in January 2009. In 2010 Hyperion Books published children's fantasy novel "The Steps Across the Water" which chronicles the adventures of a young girl, Rose, in U Nork. In 2011 Gopnik was chosen as the noted speaker for the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Massey Lectures
Massey Lectures
The Massey Lectures are an annual week-long series of lectures on a political, cultural or philosophical topic given in Canada by a noted scholar. They were created in 1961 to honour Vincent Massey, Governor General of Canada...
where he delivered five lecture across five Canadian cities on his book Winter: Five Windows on the Season
Winter: Five Windows on the Season
Winter: Five Windows on the Season is a book written by Adam Gopnik for the 2011 Massey Lectures. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city: Montreal on October 12, Halifax on October 14, Edmonton on October 21, Vancouver on October 23 and...
.
Honors and appearances
A frequent guest on Charlie RoseCharlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
, Gopnik has been honored with three National Magazine Awards for Essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
and Criticism
Criticism
Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual or group by another . To criticize does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of an objection against prejudice, or a disapproval.Another meaning of...
, and a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. His entry on the culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is featured in the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
.
Adam Gopnik recently wrote and presented BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
's Lighting Up New York, a cultural journey through the recent history of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
Adam Gopnik is the 11th annual recipient of the Westport Public Library's Booked for the Evening award. Previous award winners include Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
, E.L. Doctorow, Calvin Trillin, Wendy Wasserstein, Pete Hamill, Martin Scorsese, Arthur Mitchell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Halberstam, and Oscar Hijuelos. Booked for the Evening is the Westport Public Library's annual gala fund raising event. The Library awards an honoree whose work reflects the purpose of the Library—to nurture the love of learning and to enhance our understanding of the world. The funds raised enable the Library to continue to serve as a major community center for the 1600 people a day who walk through its doors.
Gopnik also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18.
Books
- Paris to the Moon (2000), ISBN 0-375-75823-2. excerpt
- (editor) Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology (2004), ISBN 1-931082-56-1
- The King in the Window (2005)
- Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York (2006), ISBN 978-1-4000-4181-7. excerpt
- Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life (2009), ISBN 978-0-307-27078-8
External links
- Adam Gopnik interview at Identity TheoryIdentity Theory (webzine)Identity Theory is a webzine of literature and culture, founded by University of Florida graduate Matt Borondy, established in 2000. Identity Theory is a non-profit website with substantial readership and a staff of over a dozen volunteers, including Robert Birnbaum...