Mitch Berman


Mitch Berman is an American fiction writer known for his imaginative range, exploration of characters beyond the margins of society, lush prose style and dark humor.

''Time Capsule''

Berman's novel Time Capsule, the tale of a jazz saxophonist's journey across a post-apocalyptic America, was nominated by its publisher, Putnam, for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and the Pulitzer Prize. A New York Times "New and Noteworthy Book,", the novel evoked comparisons with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and the musicality of its author's style was noted by many critics, including Fanny Howe in The New York Times, the San Diego Union, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Kurt Vonnegut. Carolyn See, in The Los Angeles Times, hailed "a brave and heartening book" and the author's "absolutely perfect ear for dialogue." The novel's editor was the late Faith Sale, who also worked with Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, Amy Tan and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Short stories

Berman's stories span an eclectic array of characters, settings and circumstances:
Berman's stories, nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes, have been named to two special mentions in the Pushcart Prizes and a one in The Best American Short Stories. Major anthologies in which his work is represented include Pow Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Voices of the Xiled: A Generation Speaks for Itself,The Male Body, and Sudden Fiction .

Nonfiction

Berman has also written nonfiction on a wide variety of subjects. With Susanne Lee, he went to Beijing to cover the violent crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 for the Village Voice. His Los Angeles Times Magazine profile of the world chess champions, Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, received special mention in the first Best American Sports Writing, edited by David Halberstam and Glenn Stout. With Susanne Lee, he served as co-freelance editor of Children of the Dragon: The Story of Tiananmen Square, reviewed several books on the crackdown, among them one by Harrison Salisbury for The Nation, and, for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, profiled jazz drummer Max Roach. He has also reviewed the works of science fiction authors Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury for the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Biography

Born in Los Angeles and raised in Southern California and Eugene, Oregon, Berman graduated in 1979 from the University of California at Berkeley. Encouraged by Ishmael Reed and Russell Banks, he graduated from the MFA Program in Writing at Columbia University in 1991. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin and SUNY Purchase, where he served as the first holder of the Royal and Shirley Durst Chair in Literature.

Publications