Renata Adler

Infobox writer


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name = Renata Adler
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birthname = Renata Adler
birthdate = birth date and age|1938|10|19
birthplace = Milan, Italy
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occupation = Novelist, Non-fiction writer, Journalist
nationality = American
period = 1968-present
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notableworks = "Towards A Radical Middle" (1970) "Speedboat" (1976) "Reckless Disregard" (1986)
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Renata Adler (born October 19, 1938 in Milan, Italy) is an American author, journalist and film critic.

Background and education

Adler was born in Milan, Italy, and grew up in the New York City suburb of Danbury, Connecticut. [ [http://www.reportingcivilrights.org/authors/bio.jsp?authorId=86 Reporters and Writers: Renata Adler Retrieved 08-03-21] ] (Her German Jewish parents had fled Frankfurt and the Nazi regime in 1933.) [ [http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/ewb_0002_0026_0/ewb_0002_0026_0_00013.html Novel Guide: Renata Adler Retrieved 08-03-21] ] After attending Bryn Mawr, The Sorbonne, and Harvard, she became a staff writer-reporter for The New Yorker. She later enrolled in Yale Law School.

Journalism

In 1968-69, Alder served as chief film critic for the New York Times. Her film reviews were collected in her book "A Year in the Dark." She then joined the staff of "The New Yorker", where she remained for four decades. [ [http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/ewb_0002_0026_0/ewb_0002_0026_0_00013.html Novel Guide: Renata Adler Retrieved 08-03-21] ] Her reporting and essays for The New Yorker on politics, war, and civil rights were reprinted in "Toward a Radical Middle."

Her "Letter from the Palmer House" was included in the Best Magazine Articles of the Seventies.

Books

Fiction

Adler is also a high-regarded fiction writer. In 1974, her short story "Brownstone" won First Prize in the O. Henry Awards. Her novel "Speedboat" won the Ernest Hemingway Award for Best First Novel of 1976.

Her next novel, "Pitch Dark" (1983), was a highly regarded—and also best-selling—sequel. "Nobody writes better prose than Renata Adler's," critic John Leonard wrote in Vanity Fair.

Non-fiction

Adler's 1986 book "Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS et al., Sharon v. Time", an account of two libel trials and the First Amendment, was also praised: "This book should be under the Christmas tree of every lawyer and journalist," wrote William B. Shannon in The Washington Post; Edwin M. Yoder, also in The Washington Post, wrote, "Reckless Disregard" is the best book about American journalism of our time." "Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker" (1999) occasioned, among journalists who had long felt themselves under attack by Adler,Fact|date=June 2007 a kind of herd instinct of unprecedented outrage—11 negative pieces in various sections of The New York Times alone.Fact|date=June 2007 The episode has already entered the lore of extreme pack journalism when its vanity is touched.Fact|date=June 2007

In 2001, Adler published "Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and the Media", a collection of pieces from The New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper's, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, and The New York Review of Books. Some of these, on the National Guard, Biafra, Pauline Kael, soap operas, the impeachment inquiries (of both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton), and the press, had received awards.Fact|date=June 2007

Honors

In 1987, Adler was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. That same year, she received an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University. Her "Letter from Selma" has been published in the Library of America volume of Civil Rights Reporting. An essay from her tenure as film critic of The New York Times is included in the Library of America volume of American Film Criticism. In 2004, she served as a Media Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute. [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/799/000048655/ NNDB: Renata Adler Retrieved 08-03-21] ]

Spy magazine once called her one of the "10 Most Litigious New Yorkers."

Bibliography

*cite book | year = 1969 | title = A Year in the Dark: Journal of a Film Critic, 1968-69 | publisher = Random House | location = New York
*cite book | year = 1970 | title = Toward a Radical Middle: Fourteen Pieces of Reporting and Criticism | publisher = Random House | location = New York
*cite book | year = 1976 | title = Speedboat | publisher = Random House | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-394-48876-8
*cite book | year = 1983 | title = Pitch Dark | publisher = Knopf | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-394-50374-0
*cite book | year = 1986 | title = Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS et al., Sharon v. Time | publisher = Knopf | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-394-52751-8
*cite book | year = 1999 | title = Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker | publisher = Simon & Schuster | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-684-80816-1
*cite book | year = 2001 | title = Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and the Media | publisher = St. Martin's Press | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-312-27520-X
*cite book | year = 2004 | title = Irreparable Harm: The U.S. Supreme Court and the Decision that Made George W. Bush President | publisher = Melville House Pub. | location = Hoboken, N.J. | id = ISBN 0-9749609-5-0
*cite book | title = In Private Capacity: The History of the Bilderberg Conference 320 pages, Time Warner Paperbacks (5 Sep 2002), ISBN 0-316-85545-6 [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316855456]

Personal

Adler until recently taught at Boston University as a Visiting Professor of Journalism. Her son Stephen (born 1986) has been a student at Boston University, and is currently employed at the Boston University Pub.

Adler's dog Julius, recently claimed by cancer, and cat, Cleopatra, have been constant companions.

References