From 2000 until 2002, he was the weekly book critic for New York magazine, for which he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Reviewing in 2001. Since 2000, he has been a frequent contributor of book, film, and theater reviews to The New York Review of Books; for the latter, he was awarded the 2002 George Jean Nathan Prize for Drama Criticism. His book reviews and essays on literary topics appear as well in The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review, and he is also a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure.
Mr. Mendelsohn is the author of six books: a memoir of family history and sexual identity, "The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity" (Knopf 1999; Vintage 2000); a scholarly study of Greek tragedy, "Gender and the City in Euripides' Political Plays" (Oxford University Press, 20002; paperback, Oxford University Press, 2005); the award-winning international bestseller "The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million," about his world-wide search for information about the fates of six relatives who perished in the Holocaust; a collection of his essays on literature and the arts, "How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken" (HarperCollins, 2008); and a two-volume translation of the complete works of C. P. Cavafy (Knopf, 2009)
Daniel Mendelsohn's essays and criticism have been widely anthologized in a number of collections including "The Best American Travel Writing," "The Mrs. Dalloway Reader," "Quick Studies: The Best of Lingua Franca," and (for 'Republicans Can Be Cured!', his 1993 satirical New York Times Op-Ed piece about the discovery of a gene for political conservatism) "Best American Humor." In addition to his other honors, Mr. Mendelsohn is the recipient of a 2005 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. In April, 2008 he was the Richard Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin; in February, 2010 he will be a Critic in Residence at the American Academy in Rome.
Daniel Mendelsohn divides his time between homes in New York City and New Jersey, where his family live.
Enquiries about speaking engagements may be directed to Alison Granucci at Blue Flower Arts: alison@blueflowerarts.com
