Nicholas Delbanco

Nicholas Delbanco
Delbanco at a book signing event, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 15 February 2012
Born	1942 (age 73–74) London, England
Occupation	Writer, author, retired program director
Spouse(s)	Elena Greenhouse
Children	Francesca Delbanco, Andrea Delbanco

Nicholas Delbanco (born 1942) is an American writer.

Life and career

Delbanco was born in London, England, the son of German Jewish parents Barbara (née Bernstein) and Kurt Delbanco, a businessman, art dealer, and sculptor.^[1][2][3] He was educated at Harvard University, B.A. 1963; Columbia University, M.A. 1966. He taught at Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, 1966–84, and at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1984–85. He was director of the MFA Program, and the Hopwood Awards Program at the University of Michigan, until his retirement in 2015.

He has published twenty-nine books of fiction and non-fiction. His most recent novel (2013) is "The Years," his most recent work of non-fiction, (2015) is "The Art of Youth: Crane, Carrington, Gershwin, and the Nature of First Acts." 2015 saw publication of the Omnibus collection, "Dear Wizard: The Letters of Nicholas Delbanco and Jon Manchip White." In 2011, he republished Sherbrookes. This book brings his trilogy of novels ("Possession," "Sherbrookes," "Stillness" from, consecutively, 1977, '78 and '80 ) between the covers of a single book. Shebrookes is not simply a reissue of the three original novels together, but a revised edition of the trilogy without being a complete revision of the original story.^[4]

Delbanco has served as Chair of the Fiction Panel for the National Book Awards, and as a judge for, among other contests, the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980,^[5] and twice, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship.

In 1962, while Delbanco was a student at Harvard, he was a student in a creative writing course at Harvard Summer School taught by John Updike, author and Harvard alum.^[6] Another student in this class was Jonathan Penner.

In the 1960s, Delbanco had a relationship with Carly Simon which is alluded to in her song You're So Vain.^[7]

Delbanco's daughter with Elena Greenhouse, Francesca, is married to director Nicholas Stoller. His daughter Andrea is married to the ACLU of New Jersey lawyer, Alexander Shalom. Elena Greenhouse's parents were cellist Bernard Greenhouse and Aurora de la Luz Fernandez y Menendez.^[8]

Works

Short stories

• The collection, About My Table, and Other Stories, publisher—William Morrow & Co, 1983
• The collection, The Writer's Trade, and Other Stories, publisher—William Morrow & Co.

Novels

• The Martlet's Tale. Lippincott. 1966. 
• Grasse, 3/23/66. Lippincott. 1968.
• In the middle distance. Morrow. 1971. 
• Small Rain. William Morrow & Co. 1975. 
• The Sherbrooke Trilogy (1977–1980)
• In the Name of Mercy. Warner. 1995. ISBN 978-0-446-51711-9. 
• What Remains. Warner Books. 2000. ISBN 978-0-446-67779-0. 
• Old Scores. Warner Books. 2000. ISBN 978-0-446-67450-8. 
• The Vagabonds. Warner Books. 2004. ISBN 978-0-446-53002-6. 
• Spring and Fall. Center Point Pub. 2006. ISBN 978-1-58547-905-4. 
• The Count of Concord. Dalkey Archive Press. 2008. ISBN 978-1-56478-495-7. 
• Sherbrookes: Possession / Sherbrookes / Stillness. Champagne, Ill: Dalkey Archive Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-56478-587-9 (paper) ISBN 1-56478-587-4 (e-book)

Non-fiction

• Group Portrait: Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, Ford Madox Ford, Henry James, and H.G. Wells. William Morrow & Co. 1982. 
• The Countess of Stanlein Restored. Verso. 2001. ISBN 978-1-85984-761-9. 
• The Lost Suitcase: Reflections on the Literary Life. Columbia University Press. 15 October 2001. ISBN 978-0-231-11543-8. 
• Running in Place. Grove Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8021-3809-5. 
• The Sincerest Form, Fiction by Imitation. McGraw-Hill. 6 October 2003. ISBN 978-0-07-241471-4. 
• Anywhere Out of the World: Essays on Travel, Writing, and Death. Columbia University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-231-13384-5. 
• Lastingness: The Art of Old Age. Grand Central Publishing. 24 January 2011. ISBN 978-0-446-19964-3. 
• The Art of Youth: Crane, Carrington, Gershwin and the Nature of First Acts. New Harvest. 19 November 2013. ISBN 978-0544114463. 

Editor

• Speaking of writing. University of Michigan Press. 1990. ISBN 978-0-472-06422-9. 
• The Sincerest Form, Writing Fiction by Imitation, publisher-McGraw-Hill, 2004
• Craft & Voice, an Introduction to Literature (w. Alan Cheuse), publisher—McGraw-Hill, 2012

Reviews

• In "The Count of Concord" we see a veteran novelist working at the height of his powers, pulling out every trick he's learned in the four decades since he published his first book, "The Martlet's Tale," at 23.^[9]

References

External links

• Author's Official Website
• University of Michigan faculty
• New York State Writers Institute
• American Legacy, Nicholas Delbanco, Boston Review, October/November 2004
• Nicholas Franklin Delbanco Biography, Jon Manchip White
• Nicholas Delbanco on Writers at Bennington, August 14 2007
• Nicholas Delbanco, Harper's Magazine