Joel Agee
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Joel Agee(born 20 March 1940[1]inNew York City) is an American writer and translator. He lives inNew York.[2]
Joel Agee | |
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Born | 20 March 1940 |
Citizenship | American |
Early life
[edit]Joel Agee is the son of the American authorJames Agee.After his parents divorced in 1941, he and his mother Alma Agee, née Mailman, went to live in Mexico where she met and married the expatriate German novelistBodo Uhse.Agee's half-brother Stefan Uhse, born in Mexico in 1946, took his own life in 1973 in New York City.[3]In 1948 the family moved to the Soviet sector of Berlin, where Uhse became editor in chief of the cultural magazineAufbau,a member of theGDR-Volkskammer,and later chairman of theEast German writers association.When her marriage failed in 1960, Alma Uhse relocated with her sons back to the United States.[4]
Joel Agee grew up in a literary family, and at an early age was determined to become a writer. Having various times dropped out of school, he was to a certain degree self-educated. He married Susan Lemansky in 1966[5]and their daughter Gina was born in 1967. A small inheritance enabled him to travel around Europe for two and a half years with his wife and daughter in search of kindred souls interested in founding a commune. During this period, the late sixties and early seventies, he was drawn to Buddhism and used drugs, notably LSD. Briefly, before returning to the US, he spent time in an English prison after being busted for possession. Many of these experiences are recounted in his memoirIn the House of My Fear.[6]
Career
[edit]Joel Agee began freelancing in the 1970s, and his essays began appearing in such prestigious magazines asThe New Yorker.In 1980 he became a staff writer forHarper's Magazineand in the following year he was named fiction editor. He wrote the memoirTwelve Years – An American Boyhood in East Germany(1981), followed byIn the House of My Fear(2004). He has translated works byHeinrich von Kleist,Friedrich Dürrenmatt,Elias Canetti,Rainer Maria Rilke,Gottfried Benn,Hans Erich Nossack,Jürg Federspiel,Aeschylusand others. He has contributed essays, stories, travel pieces and book reviews toThe New Yorker,Harper's,The New York Times Book Review,and other national publications.[7]In 2022 Melville House Books published Agee's first work of fiction, the novelThe Stone World.[8]
Works
[edit]Fiction
[edit]- The Stone World.Melville House Books, Brooklyn, 2022.
Memoirs
[edit]- Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 1981, republished by The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
- Zwölf Jahre – Eine amerikanische Jugend in Ostdeutschland.Hanser, München, 1982, (translated by Joel Agee and Lola Gruenthal), reprint (with a foreword and text comments) 2009.
- In the House of My Fear.Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington DC 2004.
Translations
[edit]- Robert Musil:Agathe or, The Forgotten Sister.New York Review Books, New York 2019.
- Aeschylus:Prometheus Bound.New York Review Books Classics, New York 2015.
- Elias Canetti:The Secret Heart of the Clock: notes, aphorisms, fragments; 1973–1985.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989.
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt:Selected writings.
- Volume 1. Plays. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006.
- Volume 2 Fictions. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006.
- Volume 3: Essays. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006.
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt:The Pledge.Boulevard (Mass Market), 2000.
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt,The Assignment: Or, On the Observing of the Observer of the Observers,Random House, 1988.*Cordelia Edvardson:Burned child seeks the fire: a memoir.Beacon Press, Boston 1997.
- Jürg Federspiel:The ballad of Typhoid Mary.Dutton, New York 1983.
- Heinrich von Kleist:Penthesilea.Harper Collins, New York 2000.
- Hans Erich Nossack:The End. Hamburg 1943,University of Chicago Press, London 2006.
- Rainer Maria Rilke:Letters on Cézanne,Fromm International Publishers, 1982; republished, with corrections and improvements and a translator's foreword, by North Point Press, 2002.
- Rainer Maria Rilke:Rilke and Benvenuta: an intimate correspondence,Fromm International Publishers, 1987.
- Karlo Štajner,Seven Thousand Days in Siberia,Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988.
Selected essays and articles
[edit]- "The Calm Before the Storm" (review of Aharon Appelfeld'sThe Age of Wonders),The New York Times,December 27, 1981.
- "The Rhine Runs Through It,"Travel and LeisureAug. 1998.
- "By a Dead Lake" (review of Elfriede Jelinek's novelGreed),New York Times,April 15, 2007.
- "The Good German" (review of Günter Grass's memoirPeeling the Onion),The Washington Post,July 8, 2007.
- "A lie that tells the truth: Memoir and the art of memory,"Harper's Magazine,Nov. 2007.
- "German lessons,"archipelago,Volume 7, Number 1.
- "Killing a Turtle,"archipelago,Volume 7, Number 1.
- "Foreword:The End,by Hans Erich Nossack, "review,archipelago,Volume 8, Number 4.
- "Not found, not lost,"Tricycle,Winter 2008.
Awards
[edit]- Guggenheim Fellowshipand a grant from theNational Endowment for the Arts
- DAAD fellowship from theDAAD Artists-in-Berlin Programof theGerman Academic Exchange Service(1990–91)
- Helen and Kurt Wolff Prizefor the translation of Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea (1999)
- The Modern Language Association’s Lois Roth Awardfor the translation of Hans Erich Nossack'sDer Untergang(2004)
- The ALTA National Translation Award(2007)
- The Berlin Prizeof theAmerican Academy in Berlin(2008)
- Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prizefinalist (2007)
References
[edit]- ^Profile of Joel Agee
- ^"Joel Agee." Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center.
- ^Always Straight Ahead: a Memoir by Alma Neuman, Louisiana State University Press, 1993, memoir by the author's mother (third husband named Neuman) with valuable information about his life.
- ^Reisman, Rosemary M. Canfield. "Joel Agee." Guide To Literary Masters & Their Works (January 2007): 1. Literary Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed January 20, 2018).
- ^New York City Clerk's Office, New York City, marriage license 26836, Ancestry database on-line.
- ^In the House of My Fear. Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington DC 2004.
- ^Reisman, Rosemary M. Canfield. "Joel Agee." Guide To Literary Masters & Their Works (January 2007): 1. Literary Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed April 21, 2018).
- ^"In Joel Agee’s wondrous ‘The Stone World’ a boy tries to make sense of life." review by Joan Frank,Washington Post,Feb. 22, 2022.
Further reading
[edit]- "James and Joel Agee: Like Father, Like Son?"[1]
- Zwei Väter aus zwei Welten.In:Berliner Zeitung,26. Mai 2000
- Always Straight Ahead: a Memoirby Alma Neuman, Louisiana State University Press, 1993, memoir by the author's mother (third husband named Neuman) with valuable information about his life.
- "Joel Agee's Trip"[2]
- "Ware House Hosts Joel Agee"
- Suzanne Munshower, "Top 10 Books About the Berlin Wall" inThe Guardian,August 25, 2009.[3]
- "An Interview with Joel Agee"inCompulsive Reader,January 16, 2022.
External links
[edit]- Bio from New York Review Books page[4]
- Poets & Writers[5]
- Literature by and about Joel Ageein theGerman National Librarycatalogue
- Website of Joel Agee
- Entry for Joel Agee in Perlentaucher[6]
- Leseprobe(PDF; 549 kB) fromZwölf Jahre – Eine amerikanische Jugend in Ostdeutschland(2009) on the site of Carl Hanser Verlags