Jonathan Safran Foer Birth:
Jonathan Safran Foer was born in Washington, DC in 1977.
Jonathan Safran Foer Background and Writing:
The son of a lawyer and the head of a PR firm, Foer attended private school throughout his childhood and was valedictorian of his high-school class.
As a freshman at Princeton in 1995, he had Joyce Carol Oates for a writing teacher, of whom Foer said "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."
As a freshman at Princeton in 1995, he had Joyce Carol Oates for a writing teacher, of whom Foer said "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."
For his senior thesis, Foer wrote about his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor whom he had never met. After graduating from Princeton with a Philosophy degree, Foer went to the Ukraine to further study Louis Safran's life. This research eventually resulted in Foer's first novel, Everything is Illuminated (2002), a complexly layered story in which the main character, named Jonathan Safran Foer, embarks on a journey to the Ukraine to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather during the Holocaust.
Foer's second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, centers around a nine-year-old boy named Oskar Schell who recently lost his father in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. As with his first novel, Foer makes excellent use of humor, as well as in exploring the serious themes of death, loss, and war. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is also quite experimental, integrating illustration and photography into the story-telling.
In 2009, Foer published his first book of nonfiction, Eating Animals, an extensively researched and extremely compelling exploration of factory farming. In 2010, he created Tree of Codes by applying die-cutting to his favorite book, Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles.
In 2009, Foer published his first book of nonfiction, Eating Animals, an extensively researched and extremely compelling exploration of factory farming. In 2010, he created Tree of Codes by applying die-cutting to his favorite book, Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles.
Jonathan Safran Foer's Books:
- Everything is Illuminated (2002)
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
- Eating Animals (2009)
- Tree of Codes
Edited by Jonathan Safran Foer:
A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by Joseph Cornell (2001)
