Jonathan Safran Foer

This article is about the American writer. For the Australian media personality, seeJohn Safran.

Jonathan Safran Foer(/fɔːr/;born February 21, 1977) is an American novelist. He is known for his novelsEverything Is Illuminated(2002),Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close(2005),Here I Am(2016), and for his non-fiction worksEating Animals(2009) andWe Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast(2019).He teaches creative writing atNew York University.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Safran Foer in 2008
Born	(1977-02-21)February 21, 1977 Washington, D.C.,U.S.
Nickname	JSF
Occupation	Novelist
Education	Princeton University(BA) Mount Sinai Medical Center
Notable works	Everything Is Illuminated(2002)
Spouse	Nicole Krauss ​ ​ (m.2004;div.2014)​
Children	2
Parents	Esther Safran Foer(mother)
Relatives	Franklin Foer(brother) Joshua Foer(brother)

Early life and education

Safran Foer was born inWashington, D.C.,as the son of Albert Foer, a lawyer and president of theAmerican Antitrust Institute,andEsther Safran Foer,a child ofHolocaustsurvivors born in Poland, who is now Senior Advisor at theSixth & I Historic Synagogue.Safran Foer is the middle son of aJewishfamily. His older brother,Franklin,is a former editor ofThe New Republicand his younger brother,Joshua,is the founder ofAtlas Obscuraand ofSefaria.Safran Foer was a "flamboyant" and sensitive child who, at the age of 8, was injured in a classroom chemical accident that resulted in "something like a nervous breakdown drawn out over about three years," during which "he wanted nothing, except to be outside his own skin."

Safran Foer attendedGeorgetown Day Schooland in 1994 traveled to Israel with other North American Jewish teenagers in a program sponsored byBronfman youth fellowships.In 1995, while a freshman atPrinceton University,he took an introductory writing course with authorJoyce Carol Oates,who took an interest in his writing, telling him that he had "that most important of writerly qualities, energy."Safran Foer later recalled that "she was the first person to ever make me think I should try to write in any sort of serious way. And my life really changed after that."Safran Foer graduated with an A.B. inphilosophyfrom Princeton in 1999 after completing a 40-page-long senior thesis, titled "Before Reading The Book of Anticedents: Intention, Literary Interpretation, and the Hypothesized Author", under the supervision ofGideon Rosen.Oates served as the advisor to Safran Foer's creative writing senior thesis, an examination of the life of his maternal grandfather, the Holocaust survivor Louis Safran. For his thesis, Safran Foer received Princeton's Senior Creative Writing Thesis Prize.

After graduating from Princeton, Safran Foer briefly attended theMount Sinai School of Medicinebefore dropping out to pursue his writing career.

Career

Safran Foer graduated from Princeton in 1999 with a degree inphilosophy,and traveled toUkraineto expand his thesis. In 2001, he edited the anthologyA Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by the Work ofJoseph Cornell,to which he contributed the short story, "If the Aging Magician Should Begin to Believe". His Princeton thesis grew into a novel,Everything Is Illuminated,which was published byHoughton Mifflinin2002.The book earned him aNational Jewish Book Award(2001)and aGuardian First Book Award(2002).Safran Foer shared thePEN/Robert W. Bingham Prizewith fellow authors Will Heinrich andMonique Truongin 2004.In 2005,Liev Schreiberwrote and directed afilm adaptationof the novel, which starredElijah Wood.

Safran Foer's second novelExtremely Loud & Incredibly Close,was published in2005.In it, Safran Foer used9/11as a backdrop for the story of 9-year-old Oskar Schell, who learns how to deal with the death of his father in theWorld Trade Center.The novel used writing techniques known as visual writing. It follows multiple but interconnected storylines, is peppered with photographs of doorknobs and other such oddities, and ends with a 14-page flipbook. Safran Foer's use of these techniques resulted in both praiseand excoriationfrom critics.Warner Bros.andParamountturned the novel into afilm,produced byScott Rudinand directed byStephen Daldry.

Safran Foer wrote the libretto for an opera titledSeven Attempted Escapes From Silence,which premiered at theBerlin State Operaon September 14, 2005.

Safran Foer in New York to discuss his bookEating Animals

In 2008, Safran Foer taught writing for the first time as a visiting professor offictionatYale University.As of 2021,he teaches in the graduate creative writing program atNew York University.Safran Foer published his third novel,Tree of Codes,in November 2010. In March 2012,The New American Haggadah,edited by Safran Foer and translated byNathan Englander,was released to mixed reviews.

In 2009, Safran Foer published his third book,Eating Animals.ANew York Timesbestseller,Eating Animalsprovides a morally dense discussion of some of the ramifications that followed the proliferation of factory farms. It attempts to explain why and how humans can be so loving to our companion animals while simultaneously being indifferent to others,and explores what this inconsistency tells us about ourselves―what kinds of stories emerge from this selectivity. The book offers a significant focus on "storytelling" ―the title of both the first and the last chapters of the book. Storytelling is Safran Foer's way of recognizing and dealing with the complexity of the subject that is eating animals, and suggests that, ultimately, our food choices tell stories about who we are, or, as Safran Foer has it in his book, "stories about food are stories about us―our history and our values."

In May 2012, Safran Foer signed a two-book deal withLittle, Brown.His novel,Escape From Children's Hospital,was due for publication in 2014, but is no longer on the publisher's schedule.In September 2016, he released the novelHere I Am.

In 2019, as part of the book tour forWe Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast,Safran Foer took part in an on stage conversation withSamin Nosratabout eating and climate change.

Safran Foer serves as a board member forFarm Forward,anonprofit organizationthat implements innovative strategies to promote conscientious food choices, reduce farmed animal suffering, and advance sustainable agriculture.

Views

Safran Foer has been an outspoken critic of themeat industry.In 2006, he recorded the narration for the documentaryIf This is Kosher...,an exposé of thekoshercertification process that advocatesJewish vegetarianism.Safran Foer's first book of non-fiction,Eating Animals(2009), addresses problems associated with industrialized meat and the ensuingethical concerns.He said that he had long been "uncertain about how I felt [about eating meat]" and that the birth of his first child inspired "an urgency because I would have to make decisions on his behalf".

In the wake of theCOVID-19 pandemic,Safran Foer reiterated his argument that Americans should eat less meat on account of the meat industry's social, environmental, and humanitarian consequences.

In his personal life, Safran Foer has been an occasionalvegetariansince the age of 10.

Personal life

In June 2004, Safran Foer married writerNicole Krauss.They lived inPark SlopeinBrooklyn,New York,and have two children. The couple divorced in 2014.

From 2015 until 2017, Safran Foer dated actressMichelle Williams.

Criticism

Because of Safran Foer's frequent use ofmodernistliterary devices, he is often named as a polarizing figure in modern literature. In his critical article "Extremely Cloying & Incredibly False",Harry Siegelwrote in theNew York Press,"Foer is supposed to be our newPhilip Roth,though his fortune-cookiesyllogismsand pointless illustrations and typographical tricks don't at all match up to or much resemble Roth even at his most inane. "

In response to charges of historical inaccuracy inEverything is Illuminated,Safran Foer defended himself inThe Guardian,writing, "Rather than aligning itself with either 'how things were' or 'how things could have been', the novel measures the difference between the two, and by so doing attempts to reflect a kind of experiential (rather than historical or journalistic) truth."

Bibliography

Fiction

• Everything Is Illuminated(2002)
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close(2005)
• Tree of Codes(2010)
• Here I Am(2016)

Non-fiction

• The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning(2005, essay,ISBN978-0141023069)
• Eating Animals(2009)
• We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast(2019)

Recognition

• 2000 –Zoetrope: All-StoryFiction Prize
• 2003 – New York Public Library'sYoung Lions Fiction Award
• 2007 – included inGranta'sBest of Young American Novelists 2.
• 2007 –HoltzbrinckFellow at theAmerican Academy in Berlin
• 2010 – included inThe New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list
• 2013 – appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council
• 2016 – included inThe Forward'sForward 50list as one of the fifty most influential Jewish-Americans of the year

See also

• List of vegetarians

External links

• Authortrek pageon Safran Foer; includes numerous links to articles, interview and information.
• Who is Augustine?Exploratory site for Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Everything Is Illuminated' (Novel)
• Jonathan Safran Foer 'Bookweb'on literary website The Ledge, with suggestions for further reading.
• John Balz (May 5, 2003)."Who in the world is JSF?".St. Petersburg Times.RetrievedDecember 11,2022.
• Author interview in Guernica Magazine (Guernicamag.com)
• "Something happened"– Guardian Unlimited article
• "Author Podcast Interview"– interview with Paula Shackleton BookBuffet.com
• "The Foer questions: Literary wunderkind turns 35"
• Jonathan Safran Foer: Novels can learn from poetry.Filmed atLouisiana Literature festival2012. Video interview byLouisiana Channel.
• Jonathan Safran Foer: Die cutting a novel.Filmed atLouisiana Literature festival2012. Video byLouisiana Channel.
• AppearancesonC-SPAN