GEORGE STEINER

'(Francis) George Steiner' (born April 23, 1929, in Paris, France) is a prominent literary critic and writer.

Contents

Family

Education

Career

Bibliography

See also

Family

He is the son of Dr Frederick George and Mrs Else Steiner. Raised trilingually, in German, English and French, his first formal education took place at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris and then at the French Lycée in New York after the family moved to the United States in 1940.
In 1955 he married Zara Shakow, to whom he had been introduced by friends in 1952. They have one son (David, Dean of the School of Education at Hunter College) and one daughter (Deborah, Professor of Classics at Columbia).

Education

He gained his BA from the University of Chicago, an MA from Harvard and a DPhil from Oxford. Between 1952 and 1958 Steiner taught at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Career

He was active on undergraduate publications while at University and in 1952 he joined the staff of ''The Economist'', in London, (1952-56). He returned to America in 1956 to attend the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, (1956-58) where he also lectured (1959-60). He held a Fulbright professorship in Innsbruck (1958-59), and in 1961 became a Founding Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, to which he was elected an Extraordinary Fellow in 1969. In 1974, after several years as a freelance writer and occasional lecturer, he accepted the post of Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva, which he held until 1994, becoming Professor Emeritus on his retirement. He has since held the positions of Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, (1994-95) and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University (2001-02).
His field is comparative literature. His work as a critic has tended toward exploring cultural and philosophical issues, particularly having to do with translation and the nature of language and of literature. Steiner's best-known book, ''After Babel'' (1975), was an early and influential contribution to the field of translation studies.
He is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to journals and newspapers including ''The New Yorker'', the ''Times Literary Supplement'' and ''The Guardian''.
He has received many honors, including:

★ A Guggenheim Fellowship, 1971-72

★ An Honorary Membership of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, 1989.

★ Hon. D.Litt from the following Universities: East Anglia, 1976; Louvain, 1980; Mount Holyoke College, USA, 1983; Bristol, 1989; Glasgow, 1990; Liège, 1990; Ulster, 1993; Durham, 1995; Queen Mary, University of London, 2006.

★ Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (1984).

★ The Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award by Stanford University (1998)

★ Fellowship of the British Academy.
He has also won numerous awards for his fiction and poetry.

Bibliography

★ ''Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in Contrast'', Faber and Faber, 1960

★ ''The Death of Tragedy'', Faber and Faber, 1961

★ ''Anno Domini: Three Stories'', Faber and Faber, 1964

★ ''The Penguin Book of Modern Verse Translation'', Penguin, 1966

★ ''Language and Silence: Essays 1958-1966'', Faber and Faber, 1967

★ ''In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture'', Faber and Faber, 1971

★ ''Extraterritorial: Papers on Literature and the Language Revolution'', Faber and Faber, 1972

★ ''The Sporting Scene: White Knights of Reykjavik'', Faber and Faber, 1973

★ ''After Babel: Aspect of Language and Translation'', Oxford University Press, 1975

★ ''Why English?'', Oxford University Press, 1975

★ ''Has Truth a Future?'', BBC, 1978 -- The Bronowski Memorial Lecture 1978

★ ''Heidegger'', Harvester Press, 1978

★ ''On Difficulty and Other Essays'', Oxford University Press, 1978

★ ''The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.'', Faber and Faber, 1981

★ ''Antigones'', Clarendon Press, 1984

★ ''George Steiner: A Reader'', Penguin, 1984

★ ''A Reading Against Shakespeare'', University of Glasgow, 1986

★ ''Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?'', Faber and Faber, 1989

★ ''Proofs and Three Parables'', Faber and Faber, 1992

★ ''What is Comparative Literature?'', Clarendon Press, 1995 -- an inaugural lecture before the University of Oxford, UK on October 11, 1994

★ ''Homer in English'', Penguin, 1996 (Editor)

★ ''No Passion Spent: Essays 1978-1996'', Faber and Faber, 1996

★ ''The Deeps of the Sea, and Other Fiction'', Faber and Faber, 1996

★ ''Errata: An Examined Life'', Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997

★ ''Grammars of Creation'', Faber and Faber, 2001

★ ''Lessons of the Masters'', Harvard University Press, 2003

★ ''Nostalgia for the Absolute'', House of Anansi Press, 2004

★ ''The Idea of Europe'', Publisher?, 2005

★ ''My Unwritten Books'', New Directions, 2008

See also

★ ContemporaryWriters.com

★ BrainyQuote.com

★ George Steiner at the Internet Movie Database

★ Averil Condren, ''Papers of George Steiner'', Churchill Archives Centre, 2001

★ Steiner's entry in Who's Who 1897-1996 (A and C Black)

★ The Harvard Gazette (27.09.01)

★ About George Steiner (in French), by Juan Asensio, L'Harmattan, 2001