Dave Eggers | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Eggers in 2018 | |
| Born | (1970-03-12)March 12, 1970 (age 55) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Education | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign |
| Period | 1993–present |
| Literary movement | Postmodern literature,post-postmodern,new sincerity |
| Notable works | |
| Spouse | Vendela Vida (2003-present) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | William D. Eggers (brother) Constance Demby (aunt) |
| Website | |
| www www | |
Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. His 2000 memoir,A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, became a bestseller and was a finalist for thePulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journalTimothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project826 Valencia, and the human rights non-profit organisationVoice of Witness. Additionally, he foundedScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in publications includingThe New Yorker,Esquire, andThe New York Times Magazine.
Eggers was born inBoston, Massachusetts, and raised in a family with three siblings. His father, John K. Eggers (1936–1991), was an attorney, and his mother, Heidi McSweeney Eggers (1940–1992), was a schoolteacher. The family moved toLake Forest, Illinois, where Eggers attended public high school and was a classmate of actorVince Vaughn.[1]
Eggers attended theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign to earn a degree in journalism. However, his studies were interrupted by the deaths of both parents: his father in 1991 and his mother in 1992. These events were later chronicled in his first book, the fictionalized memoirA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. At age 21, Eggers took responsibility for his younger brother, Christopher ("Toph"), and moved toBerkeley, California. His elder brother,William D. Eggers, is a researcher who has worked for several conservativethink tanks, promoting privatization.[2] Eggers's sister Beth died by suicide in November 2001.[3][4]
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Eggers began writing as a Salon.com editor and foundedMight magazine in San Francisco in 1994 with David Moodie and Marny Requa, while also writing a comic strip calledSmarter Feller (originallySwell) forSF Weekly.[5]
Might evolved out of the small San Francisco-based independent paperCups, and gathered a loyal following with its irreverent humor and quirky approach to the issues and personalities of the day.[6] An article purporting to be an obituary of former 1980s child starAdam Rich (originally intended to beBack to the Future starCrispin Glover until Glover backed out) garnered some national attention.[7] The magazine regularly included humor pieces, and several essays and nonfiction pieces by seminal writers of the 1990s, including "Impediments to Passion", an essay on sex in the AIDS era byDavid Foster Wallace.
Eggers later recounted in his memoirA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius that the magazine struggled to profit and stopped publication in 1997. An anthology of the best ofMight magazine's brief run,'Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp' and Other Essays from Might Magazine, was published in late 1998. By this time, Eggers was freelancing forEsquire and continuing to work for Salon.[citation needed]
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, published in 2000, is Eggers's first book, a memoir with fictional elements, and it focuses on his struggle to raise his younger brother in the San Francisco Bay Area following the deaths of both of their parents. The book quickly became a bestseller and was a finalist for thePulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. The memoir was praised for its originality, idiosyncratic self-referencing, and several innovative stylistic elements.[8] Early printings of the 2001 trade-paperback edition were published with a lengthy postscript entitled,Mistakes We Knew We Were Making.[citation needed]
In 2002, Eggers published his first novel,You Shall Know Our Velocity, a story about a frustrating attempt to give away money to deserving people while haphazardly traveling the globe. An expanded and revised version was released asSacrament in 2003. A version without the new material inSacrament was created and retitledYou Shall Know Our Velocity! for a Vintage imprint distribution. He has since publishedHow We Are Hungry, a collection of short stories, and three politically themed serials for Salon.[9]
In November 2005, Eggers publishedSurviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated, a book of interviews with former prisoners sentenced to death and later exonerated. The book was compiled withLola Vollen, a specialist in the aftermath of prominent human rights abuses and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of International Studies.[10]
Eggers' 2006 novelWhat Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng was a finalist for the 2006National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.[11] Eggers also edits theBest American Nonrequired Reading series, an annual anthology of short stories, essays, journalism, satire, and alternative comics.[12]
Eggers was one of the original contributors toESPN The Magazine and helped create its section "The Jump". He also acted as the first anonymous "Answer Guy", a column that continued to run after he stopped working for the publication.[13]
On November 7, 2009, he was presented with the "Courage in Media" Award by theCouncil on American–Islamic Relations for his bookZeitoun.[14]Zeitoun was optioned byJonathan Demme, who considered an animated film-rendition of the work. To Demme, it "felt like the first in-depth immersion I'd ever had through literature or film into theMuslim-American family. ... The moral was that they are like people of any other faith, and I hope our film, if we can get it made, will also be like that." Demme, quoted in early 2011, expressed confidence that when the script was finished, he would be able to find financing, perhaps even from a major studio.[15] However, in May 2014,The Playlist reported that the film was "percolat[ing] in development".[16] Demme died in April 2017, and the project has not been heard of since.
In the early 2010s, after six years without publishing substantive literary fiction followingWhat is the What, Eggers began a three-year streak of back-to-back novels, each broadly concerned with pressing social and political issues facing the United States and the world in the twenty-first century. Eggers published his novel of theGreat Recession and the2008 financial crisis,A Hologram for the King, in July 2012. In October of that year, the novel was announced as a finalist for the National Book Award.[17]
Eggers followed this withThe Circle, which was released in October 2013. The novel tells the story of a young employee at a fictional technology company based in San Francisco. As she navigates her job, she begins to doubt her career due to the company's seemingly benevolent innovations, ultimately revealing a more sinister underlying agenda. Completing the productive spell,Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? was published in June 2014.[18] In November 2015,Your Fathers, Where Are They ... was longlisted for the 2016International Dublin Literary Award,[19] Eggers's fifth nomination for the award following earlier nominations forThe Circle,A Hologram for the King,The Wild Things, andWhat is the What.
In April 2016, Eggers visitedIsrael as part of a project byBreaking the Silence to write an article for a book on theIsraeli occupation and the 50th anniversary of theSix-Day War.[20][21] The book was edited byMichael Chabon andAyelet Waldman and published under the titleKingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation in June 2017.[22]
In July 2016, Eggers publishedHeroes of the Frontier.[23] Earlier the same year, a film adaptation of Eggers's earlier novelA Hologram for the King was released to mixed reviews and middling commercial performance.The Circle, a film version of Eggers's book, starringEmma Watson,John Boyega, andTom Hanks (who had starred in theHologram for the King adaptation), was released in April 2017.[24] Eggers followedHeroes of the Frontier withThe Monk of Mokha (2018), another nonfiction biography in a similar vein toZeitoun, billed by the publishers as "the exhilarating true story of a youngYemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped inSana'a by civil war."[25]
Eggers ended the decade by publishing two stylistically different novellas written concurrently.The Parade, published by Knopf in March 2019, was a spare, minimalist novella reflecting Eggers's long-standing concerns with humanitarian issues, global development, and Western perceptions of the developing world. According to the advance blurb from the publisher, the novel concerns "two men, Western contractors sent to work far from home, tasked with paving a road to the capital in a dangerous and largely lawless country."[26] Reviews were mixed: Positive notices includedAndrew Motion's writing inThe Guardian that "[Eggers'] novel may be sternly reduced in terms of its cast and language, but this leanness doesn't diminish the strength of its argument",[27] andRon Charles inThe Washington Post wrote thatThe Parade is "a story that conforms to the West's reductive attitudes about the developing world. Writers and politicians have long generalized about those individual cultures. A novel that lumps them together into a nameless, primitive nation only plays into that tendency."[28]
The Parade was followed in November 2019 by another short novella,The Captain and the Glory, billed by Eggers himself as an "allegorical satire"[29] of theTrump administration.[30] In an interview with the publishers Knopf published on the McSweeney's website, Eggers described the novel as "an attempt to understandthis era by painting it in the gaudy and garish colors it really deserves... This is part farce, part parable, and I do hope, though the Captain bears more than a passing resemblance to Trump, that the book will be readable when Trump is gone. That's part of the reason I called it 'An entertainment' on the title page. It's a nod to Graham Greene but also the way I hope people will read it. It was cathartic to write, and I hope cathartic to read."[30] As withThe Parade, reviews were decidedly mixed, with much criticism noting that Eggers's satire struggled to keep up with or do justice to the events of the Trump era. In a review for theFinancial Times, Carl Wilkinson expressed bemusement about the purpose of the book and its intentions,[31] Hannah Barekat inThe Spectator was critical of the "heavy handed" nature of the book's satire,[32] andThe Guardian,[33]The Times Literary Supplement,[34] andKirkus Reviews[35] also found the book wanting.
In 2021, his novellaThe Museum of Rain was published,[36] and according to the McSweeney's website, the "elegiac" short story concerns "an American Army vet in his 70s who is asked to lead a group of young grand-nieces and grand-nephews on a walk through the hills of California's Central Coast. Walking toward a setting sun, their destination is The Museum of Rain, which may or may not still exist, and whose origin and meaning are elusive to all."[37] The novelThe Every was released in October 2021 as a follow-up to his 2013 novelThe Circle.[38]
Eggers is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house known for its literary journalTimothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, which he began in 1998. McSweeney's also publishesThe Believer, a monthly journal edited by Eggers's wife, Vendela Vida, and the now-defunct DVD magazineWholphin.
In addition to his literary pursuits, Eggers is a dedicated philanthropist. In 2002, he and educatorNínive Clements Calegari co-founded826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for children and young adults. The project has since expanded into a national organization,826 National, with chapters in cities across the United States (Los Angeles,New York City, Chicago,Ann Arbor, Washington, and Boston).[39] In April 2010, under the umbrella of 826 National, Eggers launchedScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization that connects donors with students to make college more affordable.[40][41]
In 2006, he appeared at fundraising events, dubbed the Revenge of the Book–Eaters tour, to support these programs.[42]
In September 2007, theHeinz Family Foundation awarded Eggers a $250,000Heinz Award (given to recognize "extraordinary achievements by individuals") in the Arts and Humanities.[43] In accordance with Eggers's wishes, the award money was given to826 National andThe Teacher Salary Project.[44]
While at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Eggers attended art classes. After the publication ofA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, he focused mainly on writing. Still, he publicly returned to visual art in 2010, with a solo gallery show at Electric Works inSan Francisco, called "It Is Right to Draw Their Fur".[45] The show featured many drawings of animals often paired with phrases, sometimes out of theBible.[46] In conjunction with that exhibition, McSweeney's published a catalog featuring 25 loose-leaf prints of the work featured in the show. In 2015, Eggers had his first solo museum exhibition at theNevada Museum of Art called "The Insufferable Throne of God".[46] Eggers is represented by Electric Works, a fine art gallery in San Francisco.
Outside of exhibitions, Eggers' visual art contributions include the following:
Ahead of the2006 FIFA World Cup, Eggers wrote an essay about the U.S. national team and soccer in the United States forThe Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, which contained essays about each competing team in the tournament and was published with aid from the journalGranta. According toThe San Francisco Chronicle,[48] Eggers was rumored to be a possible candidate to be the new editor ofThe Paris Review before the Review selectedLorin Stein.
Eggers's bookThe Every was released in 2021, but he refused to sell the hardcover edition on Amazon, limiting the release to independent bookstores only. Since its release, paperback editions ofThe Every have been available on Amazon.[49]
In 2022, Eggers's books were among several titles banned in South Dakota schools because of sexual content.[50] Eggers went to South Dakota to speak to authorities and students and offered any student who wanted one of the banned books a copy for free via his website.[51]
In December 2022, Eggers traveled on behalf ofPEN America toKyiv, Ukraine.[52] He published "The Profound Defiance of Daily Life in Kyiv" inThe New Yorker based on his time in the war-torn country.[53]
In May 2025, Eggers published a short story entitledUncle Patrick's Secessionist Breakfast calling on California to secede from the USA and become an independent country. Eggers contends in the story that the new California wouldn't need a military to defend itself as Russia would never attack a member of NATO and China would never attack a Western nation.[54]
Eggers lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife,Vendela Vida, who is also a writer. The two met at a wedding in San Francisco in 1998 and married in 2003.[55][56] They have two children together.[57] Eggers was the primary guardian of his youngest brother, Toph, with whom he co-authored children's books.[58]
Eggers has won numerous annual awards for specific works as well as lifetime achievement awards. He also received anhonorary doctorate degree.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)Eggers and his brother, Christopher, authored this series using the joint pseudonym Benny and Doris Haggis-on-Whey.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)Voice of Witness, founded by Dave Eggers andLola Vollen, is a non-profit organization that usesoral history to illuminate contemporaryhuman rights crises in the U.S. and around the world through an oral history book series and an education program.M.D.Mimi Lok joined in 2008 as Executive Director & Executive Editor.
{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link){{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link){{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link){{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link){{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)[87]{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)| Title | Publication | Collected in |
|---|---|---|
| "After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned" | Speaking with the Angel (2000) | How We Are Hungry |
| "Where Were We" | The New Yorker (August 12, 2002) | fromYou Shall Know Our Velocity |
| "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" | McSweeney's 10 (2002) | How We Are Hungry |
| "Marrakesh" | Punk Planet 55 (May-June 2003) | fromYou Shall Know Our Velocity |
| "The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water" | Zoetrope: All-Story 7.2 (Summer 2003) | How We Are Hungry |
| "Something Might Plummet. Something Might Soar" | The Guardian (August 2, 2003) | Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 |
| "Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance" aka "Measuring the Jump" | The New Yorker (September 1, 2003) | How We Are Hungry |
| "Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone" | Ninth Letter 1 (Spring-Summer 2004) | |
| "About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her" | The Guardian (March 27, 2004) | |
| "On Wanting to Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home" | The Guardian (April 3, 2004) | |
| "You'll Have to Save That for Another Time" | The Guardian (April 10, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust" | The Guardian (April 17, 2004) | How We Are Hungry |
| "The Young Woman Appreciates Having Food Even Though She Has Never Gone Hungry" | The Guardian (April 24, 2004) | - |
| "On Making Someone a Good Man by Calling Him a Good Man" | The Guardian (May 1, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "Naveed" aka "Stephanie Can't Do 13" | The Guardian (May 8, 2004) | How We Are Hungry |
| "Madeline Smiles at the Thought" | The Guardian (May 15, 2004) | - |
| "Woman Waiting to Take a Photo" | The Guardian (May 22, 2004) | - |
| "When He Started Saying 'I Appreciate It' After 'Thank You'" | The Guardian (May 29, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "You Know How to Spell Elijah" | The Guardian (June 5, 2004) | |
| "The Definition of Reg" | The Guardian (June 12, 2004) | |
| "She Waits, Seething, Blooming" | The Guardian (June 19, 2004) | How We Are Hungry |
| "On Seeing Bob Balaban in Person Twice in One Week" | The Guardian (June 26, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "Older Man Tries Not to Groan in an Overly Desperate Way While Holding His Younger Girlfriend" | The Guardian (July 3, 2004) | - |
| "How Do the Koreans Feel About the Germans?" | The Guardian (July 10, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "The Heat and Eduardo, Part I" | The Guardian (July 17, 2004) | |
| "The Heat and Eduardo, Part II" | The Guardian (July 24, 2004) | |
| "Of Gretchen and de Gaulle" aka "Gretchen the Squid" | The Guardian (July 31, 2004) | |
| "They Decide to Have No More Death" | The Guardian (August 7, 2004) | |
| "The Weird Wife" | The Guardian (August 14, 2004) | |
| "The Woman Wondered How People Did It" | The Guardian (August 21, 2004) | - |
| "When They Learned to Yelp" | The Guardian (August 28, 2004) | How We Are Hungry |
| "The Boy They Didn't Take Pictures Of" | The Guardian (September 4, 2004) | - |
| "Woman, Foghorn" | The Guardian (September 11, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "How Long It Took" | The Guardian (September 18, 2004) | |
| "Your Mother and I" | h2so4 19 (Autumn-Winter 2004) | How We Are Hungry |
| "But Is That Irony or Something Else?" | The Guardian (September 25, 2004) | - |
| "A Whispered Hello" | The Guardian (October 2, 2004) | - |
| "Sleep to Dreamier Sleep Be Wed" | The Guardian (October 9, 16 & 23, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "She Needed More Nuance" | The Guardian (October 30, 2004) | |
| "Alameda" | The Guardian (November 6, 2004) | - |
| "Georgia Is Lost" aka "Rodney Is Looking for His Daughter" | The Guardian (November 13, 2004) | Short Short Stories |
| "This Flight Attendant (Gary, Is It?) Is on Fire!" | The Guardian (November 20, 2004) | |
| "True Story, 1986, Midwest, USA, Tuesday" | The Guardian (November 27, 2004) | |
| "This Certain Song" aka "Catchy, But Not Danceable" | The Guardian (December 4, 2004) | |
| "A Circle Like Some Circles" aka "A Perfect Circle" | The Guardian (December 11, 2004) | |
| "Another" | How We Are Hungry (2004) | How We Are Hungry |
| "Quiet" | ||
| "There Are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself" | ||
| "It Is Finally Time to Tell the Story" | The Guardian (January 1, 2005) | Short Short Stories |
| "What the Water Feels Like to the Fishes" | The Guardian (January 8, 2005) | |
| "The End of Tejada" | The Guardian (January 15, 2005) | - |
| "Roderick Hopes" | The Guardian (January 22, 2005) | Short Short Stories |
| "Should You Lie About Having Read That Book?" | The Guardian (January 29, 2005) | - |
| "Tracy and Her Loyalty" | The Guardian (February 5, 2005) | - |
| "A No on Debussy" | The Guardian (February 12, 2005) | - |
| "Outside This One Time" | The Guardian (February 19, 2005) | - |
| "I Will Always Love You" | The Guardian (February 26, 2005) | - |
| "No Safe Harbor" | The Guardian (March 5, 2005) | - |
| "Unlikely Meetings, Part XXIV" | The Guardian (March 12, 2005) | - |
| "Fecal Matter of the USA" | The Guardian (March 19, 2005) | - |
| "The Immortal Fly Is Tired" | The Guardian (March 26, 2005) | - |
| "These Certain Young People" | The Guardian (April 2, 2005) | - |
| "Types of Pain, Their Duration and Intentions" | The Guardian (April 9, 2005) | - |
| "Accident" | The Guardian (April 16, 2005) | - |
| "We Can Work It Out" | The Guardian (April 23, 2005) | - |
| "When the Fishes Were Stopped by a Policeman" | The Guardian (April 30, 2005) | - |
| "These Two Cousins" | The Guardian (May 7, 2005) | - |
| "About the Man Uglier and Scarier Than Ratzinger" | The Guardian (May 14, 2005) | - |
| "True Story, Kansas City, 2003" | The Guardian (May 21, 2005) | - |
| "And Built Like a Little Bodybuilder" | The Guardian (May 28, 2005) | - |
| "The End Is Nigh" | The Guardian (June 4, 2005) | - |
| "The Battle Between the Giant Squid and the Bears of Yosemite" | The Guardian (June 11, 2005) | - |
| "Theo" | The Book of Other People (2007) | - |
| "A Fork Brought Along" | The Guardian (August 1, 2009) | - |
| "Max at Sea" | The New Yorker (August 24, 2009) | fromThe Wild Things |
| "Who Knocks?" | Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (2012) | - |
| "We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better" | The New York Times (September 22, 2013) | fromThe Circle |
| "The Alaska of Giants and Gods" | The New Yorker (November 17, 2014) | fromHeroes of the Frontier |
| "The Museum of Rain" | The Museum of Rain (2021) | - |
| "Where the Candles Are Kept" | Small Odysseys: Selected Shorts Presents 35 New Stories (2022) | - |
| "The Honor of Your Presence" | One Story 302 (June 22, 2023) | - |
| "The Comebacker" | The Atlantic (September 2023) | - |
| "The Keeper of the Ornaments" | The Keeper of the Ornaments (2024) | - |
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