Brian Evenson

Brian Evenson (born August 12, 1966, in Ames, Iowa) is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction. He has received degrees from Brigham Young University (BA) and the University of Washington (MA and PhD). After leaving a teaching position at BYU, he held positions at Oklahoma State University, Syracuse University and University of Denver. He is currently the Chair of the Literary Arts Program at Brown University. He is also a senior editor of the "Conjunctions" literary journal published by Bard College and has participated in Naropa University's Summer Writing Program and The Juniper Summer Writing Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers.

Formerly a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormon Church), Evenson left both the Church and a teaching position at Brigham Young University following controversy surrounding his first book, "Altmann's Tongue".

Overview

Evenson is a prolific writer of short stories, novellas, and novels. He has also translated several works of literature from French into English. His own works of fiction often feature characters struggling with moral, religious, and epistemological problems. Violence and black humor are common elements of his narratives. His work is subtly philosophical, many of his recurrent themes of virtuality and "sensation" being traceable to Deleuze & Guattari's "Capitalism and Schizophrenia", and several of his books have epigraphs from philosopher Alphonso Lingis. Although most often published by small presses specializing in literary fiction, some of Evenson's work has also appeared in the horror genre press and he has contributed a media tie-in novel to the Aliens franchise.

Evenson's work has been compared to that of J. G. Ballard, Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Bowles, Franz Kafka, William S. Burroughs, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Coover and Edgar Allan Poe (among others).

Awards

* In 1995, Evenson received a Creative Writer's Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
* In 1998, he received an O. Henry Award for his story "Two Brothers".
* In 2005, he received an International Horror Guild Award for best story collection for "The Wavering Knife".
* In 2007, His novel "The Open Curtain" was chosen as one of the ten best books of 2006 by Time Out New York.
* In 2007, "The Open Curtain" was also a finalist for an Edgar Award.
* In 2007, His translation of Claro's "Electric Flesh" was a finalist for the French American Foundation's Translation Prize.

Bibliography

Works of Fiction

* "Altmann's Tongue" (1994)
* "Din of Celestial Birds" (1997)
* "Prophets and Brothers" (1997)
* "Father of Lies" (1998)
* "Contagion and Other Stories" (2000)
* "Dark Property: An Affliction" (2002)
* "The Brotherhood of Mutilation" (2003)
* "The Wavering Knife" (2004)
* "The Open Curtain" (2006)
* "Aliens: No Exit" (2008) as by B.K. Evenson
* "Last Days" (scheduled 2009, as Underland Press' debut novel)

Works of Non-fiction

* "Understanding Robert Coover" (2003)

Works of Translation

* "The Passion of Martin Fissel Brandt" by Christian Gailly (2002)
* "Giacometti: Three Essays" by Jacques Dupin (2003)
* "Mountain R" by Jacques Jouet (2004)
* "Red Haze" by Christian Gailly [co-translated with David Beus] (2005)
* "Electric Flesh" by Christophe Claro (2006)

Recordings

* "Altmann's Tongue" by Brian Evenson with Xingu Hill & Tamarin (2005). Currently available from many legal mp3 sites (Amie Street, Emusic, Itunes, Amazon etc). Also, available as a CD.

External links

* The [http://www.brianevenson.com home page] of Brian Evenson's personal website.
* [http://www.ant-zen.com/graph/act159-brian%20evenson%20an%20introduction.pdf Brian Evenson: an introduction] is a comprehensive article from 2005 provided by [http://www.ant-zen.com/ Ant-Zen Records] .
* An [http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_02_004303.php interview] from 2005 with Evenson, conducted by Geoffrey H. Goodwin for the [http://www.bookslut.com Bookslut] web site.
* An [http://webdelsol.com/evenson/beven.htm interview] with Evenson conducted by Ben Marcus for the [http://webdelsol.com/ Web del Sol] site.
* Evenson's [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/durrenmatt/vol3_introduction.html introduction] to the essays of Friedrich Durrenmatt.