Anatole Broyard | |
|---|---|
 Broyard in 1971 | |
| Born | Anatole Paul Broyard July 16, 1920 New Orleans,Louisiana, US |
| Died | October 11, 1990(1990-10-11) (aged 70) Boston,Massachusetts, US |
| Occupation |
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| Alma mater | Brooklyn College (attended),New School for Social Research (attended) |
| Period | 1948–1990 |
| Subject | |
| Notable works |
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| Spouse | Aida Sanchez (div. c. 1948) Alexandra Nelson (m. 1964) |
| Children | 3 |
Anatole Broyard (1920-1990) was an American writer,literary critic, and editor whose literary output spanned several decades. Hisoeuvre encompassedshort stories,essays, andreviews. He was a prolific contributor to severalliterary magazines and publications, most notablyThe New York Times, where he served as a regular book reviewer for nearly fifteen years and later as aneditor.[1][2][3][4]
Broyard's earliest published work appeared in magazines the 1940s and early 1960s. Articles and essays in prominent intellectual journals followed.[1][2][3][4]
As a literary critic, Broyard gained a reputation for his discerning and often acerbic commentary.[1][2][3][4]
Anatole Broyard was born on July 16, 1920 inNew Orleans, Louisiana, to Anatole and Edna Broyard. Both parents were of LouisianaCreole descent. He had two sisters, Lorraine and Shirley. When Anatole was a child, the family moved toBrooklyn,New York, where his father was a construction worker.[1][2][3][4]
The 21-year old Broyard enlisted in theUnited States Army Air Forces upon the country'sentrance intoWorld War II. He served as a troop transport officer in thePacific Theater.[2]
Upon his return in 1946, he moved toGreenwich Village, then home to a burgeoningbohemian intellectual and artistic cultural scene. It was in this milieu that Broyard began to cultivate his literary aspirations, contributing short stories and essays to various literary magazines and journals throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, laying the groundwork for his extensive career.[1][2][3][4]
Broyard used theGI Bill to take classes atBrooklyn College andThe New School for Social Research inManhattan, where he took seminars inpsychoanalysis. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, Broyard had begun writing and submitting short stories and essays to "little magazines" such asModern Writing,Discovery, andNew World Writing. The magazines accepted his submissions, and upon publication he became recognized as an important new voice.[1][2][3][4]
Broyard's essay "A Portrait of the Hipster," published inPartisan Review in 1948, came to be widely recognized and frequently quoted. In this seminal work, Broyard examined the nascent "hipster" subculture emerging in Greenwich Village. Of the hipster, Broyard wrote that "he was always of the minority—opposed in race or feeling to those who owned the machinery of recognition." And he observed intellectuals "ransacking everything for meaning, admiring insurgence... attributed every heroism to the hipster."[4][5]
However, Broyard himself was far less sanguine about these perceived new rebels. He viewed their attempts to defy societal constraints throughnarcotics,jazz, and general disaffiliation with "straight" society as ultimately leading to a new form of conformity. Broyard noted a shift where figures once on the fringes of the jazz underground began to take themselves seriously and seek validation. As he put it, "The hipster promptly became in his own eyes, a poet, aseer, a hero." He further contended that the hipster lifestyle "grew more rigid than the institutions it had set out to defy. It became a boring routine. The hipster - once an unregenerate individualist, an underground poet, aguerrilla - had become a pretentiouspoet laureate."[4][5]
His growing reputation in the wake of his magazine pieces led to his teachingcreative writing at The New School,New York University, andColumbia University.[1][2][3][4][6]
Broyard was deeply embedded in the cultural and social life of "The Village" in 1940s and 50s. He frequentedliterary salons and formed lasting connections with writers and intellectuals. Broyard was known for his sharp wit and engaging presence. He briefly ran a secondhand bookstore on Cornelia Street, a hub for literary figures. While short-lived, the bookstore further cemented his connections within this cultural milieu. Hismemoir, published after his death (see below), offers a vivid account of Broyard's experiences in the postwar years.[1][2][3][4][7][8]
His professional career took a significant turn in 1971, when he was offered a position writingbook reviews forThe New York Times. He quickly became a prolific contributor, renowned for his incisive, witty, and highly opinionated critiques. He served as a daily book reviewer at theTimes for nearly fifteen years, becoming a prominent "culturalgatekeeper" whose assessments could significantly affect a book's reception.[1][2][3][4][9]
Broyard's collected literary reviews were published inAroused by Books (1974). In the late 1970s, he also began writing personal essays forThe New York Times, which many readers and critics considered to be among his most compelling work. These essays were subsequently collected inMen, Women and Other Anticlimaxes (1980). In 1984, he was given a dedicated column in theNew York Times Book Review; he became an editor there in 1986.[1][2][3][4]
Broyard continued his influential work as a critic, editor, and essayist until 1989, when he received a diagnosis ofprostate cancer and retired from theBook Review.[1][2][3][4]
Even during his illness, Broyard remained a regular contributor to theBook Review. He wrote a weekly unsignedcolumn called "Noted With Pleasure", and a monthly essay titled "About Books".[1][2]
Upon receiving the cancer diagnosis, Broyard turned his critical gaze toward his own mortality and illness. He began to write extensively about his experiences as a patient, producing a series of essays that explored the physical and emotional realities ofterminal illness. These pieces, marked by Broyard's characteristic wit and philosophical depth—now applied to the subject of death andsuffering—were published byThe New York Times. These essays on illness are considered some of his finest and most moving work. An extended piece on his illness was published as a memoir,Intoxicated by My Illness, after his death.[1][2][3][4]
Anatole Broyard died on October 11, 1990.[1][2]
Two of Broyard's major works were published posthumously to general acclaim, further solidifying his stature:
Broyard was married twice and had a total of three children. His first marriage, to Aida Sanchez, ended in divorce after Broyard's return from military service. They had a daughter, Gala.[1][2][3][4]
In 1961 Broyard married Alexandra Nelson, a modern dancer. They had two children: son Todd, born in 1964; and daughter Bliss, born in 1966. The family lived in Connecticut.[1][2][3][4][10]
In 1996,The New Yorker magazine published an essay byHenry Louis Gates Jr. titled "White Like Me." In it, Gates examined Broyard's purported decision to "pass" as white; Gates characterized this as a deliberate act of concealment.[9] This characterization, particularly the notion that Broyard actively hid hisCreole ancestry, contrasts with accounts from contemporaries such asPhilip Roth, who stated that Broyard's background was not a secret within their overlapping literary circles.[11]
In 2007, Anatole's daughter Bliss Broyard published a memoir in which she claimed that her father kept his African-American ancestry a secret from his children.[10]
Taken together, the essay and the memoir had a dual and lasting effect: they both reintroduced Broyard to a new generation of readers; and they repositioned his public image, shifting the basis of his notoriety from intellectual achievement toracial identity. This shift is especially apparent in discourse on contemporary "hipsterism" and its precursor in the1940s subculture that Broyard examined in his 1948 essay "Portrait of a Hipster".[5]
If it was a conversation topic amongst Broyard's circle, his Creole background went publicly undiscussed in his lifetime, and the subject of his own racial identity did not feature in his work. According to daughter Bliss, he did describe being ostracized when young by both black and white children for his ambiguous appearance.[10][11]
Anatole Broyard established his place in American letters through his prolific and influential work as a literary critic and essayist. For nearly fifteen years, he served as a prominent daily book reviewer forThe New York Times, a role that positioned him as a shaper of literary discourse. His critical voice was distinct, characterized by its incisiveness, wit, and often provocative opinions, blending worldliness withhigh culture and a memorable use ofaphorisms. His collected reviews were published asAroused by Books (1974). Broyard also won acclaim for his personal essays forThe New York Times, later compiled inMen, Women and Other Anticlimaxes (1980). His posthumous works further solidified his legacy.[1][2][3][4]
