Kevin Brown | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1960-09-03)September 3, 1960 (age 65) |
| Alma mater | City University of New York (CUNY) |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | from 1978 |
| Organization | PEN American Center |
Kevin Brown (born September 3, 1960) is an American biographer, essayist, translator, and author. Born inKansas City, Missouri, Brown developed an interest in writing after completing high school in 1977. While pursuing his studies atColumbia University andCity University of New York, he wrote literature reviews and essays forThreepenny Review.
Moving forward, Brown wrote, contributed, or anthologized inAfterimage,American Book Review,Washington Post, and many more. Furthermore, Brown has authored biographies forRomare Bearden (Romare Bearden: Artist) in 1994, andMalcolm X (Malcolm X: His Life and Legacy) in 1995. As well as a contributing editor to theAfrican American Desk Reference in 1999.
Kevin Brown was born inKansas City, Missouri in 1960, from mother, Duan Nimmons, whose family had been active in theHarlem Renaissance and father John Brown a writer and a football running back. Before primary school, he traveled around Western Europe and North Africa with his father. In the late 60s, Brown lived in theHaight Ashbury district ofSan Francisco, attending Twin Peaks Elementary School. In the early 1970s, he lived in theBay Area peninsula, inSan Mateo andSanta Clara counties, attending Ralston Middle School inBelmont, California, as well as Rancho Junior High and Samuel Ayer High School inMilpitas, California, a suburb ofSan Jose. He graduated from Southeast High School in Kansas City, Missouri (1977). From 1978 to 1979, he lived inSt. Louis, Missouri, reading, writing, and waiting tables.[1]
From 1980 to 1984, in San Francisco, Brown studied Latin and Greek with a private tutor, reading widely in the works of the ancients and the French as well as contemporary post-war writers likeGore Vidal. He began publishing book reviews on writers likeZora Neale Hurston,Samuel Pepys andVirginia Woolf in newspapers such as theOakland Tribune.[1] Furthermore longer essays onCarlos Saura,[2] andJames Baldwin in theThreepenny Review.[3]
In 1985, Brown worked as an editorial assistant in the publishing industry in New York, and contributed toThe Times Literary Supplement.
In 1986, Brown moved to New York, attending theColumbia University School of General Studies for one year before transferring to theCity University of New York. There, he double-majored in Spanish as well as Translating & Interpreting, completing his undergraduate degree in theCUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies, headquartered at theGraduate Center of the City University of New York. He studied with literary translatorGregory Rabassa, among others.[1]
From 1987 to 1989, Brown was a regular contributor toKirkus Reviews, where he published book reviews on subjects as various asAfrica, African-American writers, 20th century American poetry, Anglo-American common law, Australian-New Zealand writers, French history and literature, theHarlem Renaissance, music, photography, politics.[1]
During the 1990s, he traveled in Central America and Eastern Europe, contributed to theAmerican Book Review,American Visions andNew York Newsday, and contracted to begin work on a series of biographies onRomare Bearden,Malcolm X andCountee Cullen.[1]
In 1994, Brown's biography ofRomare Bearden,Romare Bearden: Artist, was released.[4]
In 1995, Brown's biography ofMalcolm XMalcolm X: His Life and Legacy was released.[5] Commissioned in 1993, just after the release ofSpike Lee's movie on the same subject, Brown's second book attempts to chronicle the rise and fall of Malcolm X as well as that of rival leader Martin Luther King against the backdrop of the civil rights and black nationalist movements.[6]
In 1999, Brown was a contributing editor for the bookAfrican American Desk Reference about essential information on African American history. Brown provided chapter 14 on music.[7]
Brown's 2005 translation into Spanish ofVirginia Woolf's little known essay "Reviewing" appeared in theIowa University journal of literary translationeXchanges.[citation needed]
In 2006, his profile-interview of translatorGregory Rabassa was published in 2006 by theUniversity of Delaware'sReview of Latin American Studies.[8]
Throughout his career, Brown contributed essays and articles forAfterimage,Apuntes,Asymptote,The Best American Essays 2021,The Brooklyn Rail,The Chattahoochee Review,The Delaware Review of Latin American Studies,eXchanges,Fiction International,Georgia Review,Hayden's Ferry Review,The Kansas City Star,Mayday,Metamorphoses,The Nation,Rain Taxi,Salmagundi,Two Lines,Washington Post, etc.[9][additional citation(s) needed]
Brown lived in New York for 22 years, from 1985 to 2007, during which time he married and had a son. Brown returned to California in 2007, and currently lives inSan Diego.[1]
Brown's career and writing were influenced by his family history. His father, John Brown, was a writer and running back with the late 1950sIowa Hawkeyes football team who played in the1959 Rose Bowl. In the mid-1960s, John Brown was acquainted with writersWilliam S. Burroughs,Ted Joans, and other writers of theBeat Generation. Brown's mother, Duan Nimmons, was born (1940) in New York City, where her family had been active in theHarlem Renaissance of the 1920s and early 1930s. His maternal great-grandmother was Ida Mae Roberson (later, Ida Cullen-Cooper), widow of Harlem Renaissance poetCountee Cullen.[1]
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