Jonathan Franzen

Novelist

Jonathan Franzen was born in Western Springs, Illinois, United States on August 17th, 1959 and is the Novelist. At the age of 64, Jonathan Franzen biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
August 17, 1959
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
Western Springs, Illinois, United States
Age
64 years old
Zodiac Sign
Leo
Networth
$10 Million
Profession
Essayist, Novelist, Writer
Social Media
Jonathan Franzen Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 64 years old, Jonathan Franzen physical status not available right now. We will update Jonathan Franzen's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

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Weight
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Hair Color
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Jonathan Franzen Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
Swarthmore College
Jonathan Franzen Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Valerie Cornell ​(divorced)​
Children
Not Available
Dating / Affair
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Parents
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Jonathan Franzen Life

Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist.

Franzen's 2001 book The Corrections, a sprawling, satirical family romance, received a National Book Award, and he was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.

Freedom (2010) earned similar praise and culminated in an appearance on the front page of Time magazine with the headline "Great American Novelist."Franzen has been contributing to The New Yorker magazine since 1994.

The state of contemporary literature was criticized in Harper's essay Perchance to Dream in 1996.

Oprah Winfrey's book club pick in 2001 of The Corrections led to a tense rivalry with the talk show host.

Franzen has become known for his views on everything from social networking services such as Twitter to individual, as well as in the stillness and permanence of the printed word. "The true substance of our daily lives is utterly electronic distraction" to the omission of e-books ("All the true things, the authentic things, are dying off.") America's own destruction.

Early life and education

Franzen was born in Western Springs, Illinois, the son of Irene (née Super) and Earl T. Franzen. His father, who was born in Minnesota, was the son of an immigrant from Sweden; his mother's ancestry was Eastern European. Franzen grew up in a wealthy suburb on 83 Webster Woods Drive in Webster Groves, Missouri, where he earned a degree in German at Swarthmore College. He studied abroad in Germany during the 1979–80 academic year with Wayne State University's Junior Year in Munich, as part of his undergraduate studies. He met Michael A. Martone, on whom he would later base Walter Berglund in Freedom. He stayed at Freie Universität Berlin in Berlin from 1981 to 1982; he speaks fluent German. Franzen was born in 1982 and moved with his wife to Somerville, Massachusetts, to pursue a career as a novelist. When writing his first book, The Twenty-Seventh City, he worked as a research assistant at Harvard University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, coauthoring more than a dozen papers. Franzen sold The Twenty-Seventh City to Farrar Straus & Giroux in September 1987, a month after he and his wife moved to New York City.

Early novels

The Twenty-Seventh City, which was published in 1988 in Franzen's hometown, St. Louis, is based on the city's demise from grace, with St. Louis being the city's "fourth city" in the 1870s. This sprawling book was warmly welcomed, establishing Franzen as a writer to watch. Franzen referred to The Twenty-Seventh City as "a chat with the literary figures of my parents' generation[,] the great sixties and seventies Postmoderns. "I was a skinny, terrified boy attempting to write a big book," he said in a later interview. The mask I wore was that of a rhetorically airtight, highly articulate middle-aged writer."

Strong Motion (1992) focuses more on a dysfunctional family, the Hollands, and uses seismic events on the American East Coast as a model for the quakes that occur in family life (as Franzen put it), "I imagined static lives being interrupted from without." "I imagined violent scenes that would take away the veneer and show people screaming out in a raged moral conflict at each other." "The principles of science and faith are fundamentally opposing models of making sense in the world," Franzen describes in a "systems novel." At the time of its publication, the book was not a financial success. In a 2010 Paris Review interview, Franzen defended the book, saying, "I think they [critics and readers] may be overlooking Strong Motion a little bit."

Franzen taught a fiction-writing class at Swarthmore in 1992 and 1994:

Franzen invited David Foster Wallace to be a guest judge of the workshop assignments for the 1992 class.

Personal life

Franzen was married to fellow writer Valerie Cornell in the early twenties. They were born in New York City and were married for fourteen years. In some of his essays in the collection Farther Away, his marriage and divorce are discussed.

Franzen lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his "spouse-equivalent" writer Kathy Chetkovich.

Franzen is best known as a good birdwatcher, as he wrote in his essay "My Bird Problem" from the start. In March 2018, he appeared on CBS Morning to discuss his obsession with birds and birdwatching. Franzen served on the board of the American Bird Conservancy for nine years. In 2013, a feature-length documentary based on Franzen's "Emptying the Skies" was released.

Franzen is a long-time fan of the Mekons, who appeared in the 2014 film Revenge of the Mekons to discuss the group's importance to him.

Franzen's glasses were stolen from his face by a gatecrasher who jokingly threatened to ransom them for $100,000 before being arrested by police in Hyde Park in 2010.

Source

Jonathan Franzen Awards

Awards and honors

  • 1981 Fulbright Scholarship to Germany
  • 1988 Whiting Award
  • 1996 Guggenheim Fellowship
  • 2000 Berlin Prize (American Academy in Berlin)
  • 2001 National Book Award (Fiction) for The Corrections
  • 2001 Salon Book Award (Fiction) for The Corrections
  • 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner (Fiction) for The Corrections
  • 2010 Salon Book Award (Fiction) for Freedom
  • 2010 Galaxy National Book Awards, International Author of the Year, Freedom
  • 2011 Heartland Prize for Freedom
  • 2011 John Gardner Award (Fiction) for Freedom
  • 2012 Carlos Fuentes Medal (Inaugural award)
  • 2013 Welt-Literaturpreis
  • 2015 Budapest Grand Prize
  • 2015 Euronatur Award for outstanding commitment to nature conservation in Europe
  • 2017 Frank Schirrmacher Preis
  • 2022 Thomas Mann Prize

Who really does more chores in your house?TANYA GOLD and her husband Andrew have always argued about who bears the domestic brunt - but when they tried a new app, the results stunned them both

www.dailymail.co.uk, November 16, 2023
I always thought I had the right guy, but he does everything for me. When I listen to married friends moan about their useless, selfish partners who never cook or look after the children, I think, 'How can you tolerate this?'Why don't you throw him out and replace him with a paragon like mine?So I was sure my husband would be the winner in the age-old debate over more households Anybody is talking about the new Share The Load website, which allows you to enter the hours you spend on various tasks, not just cleaning, but also building, DIY, cooking, teaching, dog walking, and laundry, and eventually, I'll not reveal just yet.

NOTEBOOK by ALEXANDRA SHULMAN: I'm finding a lot of joy in the quiet facets of marriage

www.dailymail.co.uk, August 20, 2022
ALEXANDRA SHULMAN: Marriage (pictured) on the BBC has been lauded for its ability to capture the mundanity of real life. A TV drama without kitchen islands and ocean views, designer clothes, and sex. Now there is a thing. The five-star award was given for the pitch-perfect portrayal of a 'normal' couple, who are depicted in all their boring, repetitive, Lakeland catalogue hall furniture, and saggy jim-jam lives.

Mills & Boon books, which had previously been deemed terminally stalemate, now have legions of eager new followers

www.dailymail.co.uk, August 14, 2022
Mills & Boon books are deemed as wretched, and you won't be seen reading them. TikTok has resurgent romance fiction from UK-based publishers. With a 48 percent increase in volume relative to 23 percent for science fiction, the romance genre is on fire. Illustration: Matthew Laznicka