Phil Klay
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Phil Klay (; born 1983) is an American
writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
. He won the
National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...
for fiction in 2014 for his first book-length publication, a collection of short stories, ''
Redeployment Military deployment is the movement of armed forces and their logistical support infrastructure around the world. Notable deployments and deployment forces include: * Egyptian Rapid deployment forces * Pakistan Armed Forces deployments * Deploymen ...
''. In 2014 the National Book Foundation named him a 5 under 35 honoree. His 2020 novel, ''Missionaries'', was named as one of President Obama’s favorite books of the year as well as one of
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
's Ten Best Books of the Year. He was a
United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
officer from 2005 to 2009. In addition to other projects, he currently teaches in the MFA writing program at
Fairfield University Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time ...
.


Early life

Klay grew up in
Westchester, New York Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population o ...
, the son of Marie-Therese F. Klay and William D. Klay. His family background included several examples of public service. His maternal grandfather was a career diplomat and his father a
Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...
volunteer; for years his mother worked in international medical assistance. He attended Regis High School in New York City, graduating in 2001.


Education and military career

During the summer of 2004, while a student at
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
, where he played rugby and boxed, Klay attended Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 and then joined the
U.S. Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through comb ...
, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He later explained that: During the U.S. troop surge in Iraq, he served for thirteen months in
Anbar province Al Anbar Governorate ( ar, محافظة الأنبار; ''muḥāfaẓat al-’Anbār''), or Anbar Province, is the largest governorate in Iraq by area. Encompassing much of the country's western territory, it shares borders with Syria, Jordan, ...
in Iraq from January 2007 to February 2008. He left the military in 2009 and then earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...
in 2011. He described his time in the military as "a very mild deployment" as a Public Affairs Officer. He said that he wrote his collection of short stories based on his service and return to civilian life because: He has objected to the way civilians distance themselves from military experience: He has described how "the gap between public mythology and lived experience" even affects both veteran-civilian dialogue and the veteran self-perception: The culture, according to Klay, presents hurdles to communication and a shared understanding:


Writing career

Klay's collection of short stories, ''Redeployment'', was published in March 2014. Writing in the '' Daily Beast'', Brian Castner described the book "a clinic in the profanities of war". He wrote: In the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dexter Filkins wrote that "Klay succeeds brilliantly, capturing on an intimate scale the ways in which the war in Iraq evoked a unique array of emotion, predicament and heartbreak.... Iraq comes across not merely as a theater of war but as a laboratory for the human condition in extremis. ''Redeployment'' is ... the best thing written so far on what the war did to people’s souls." In November 2014, Klay won the National Book Award for fiction for his collection of short stories ''
Redeployment Military deployment is the movement of armed forces and their logistical support infrastructure around the world. Notable deployments and deployment forces include: * Egyptian Rapid deployment forces * Pakistan Armed Forces deployments * Deploymen ...
''. The judges described it as a "brutal, piercing sometimes darkly funny collection" that "stakes Klay's claim for consideration as the quintessential storyteller of America’s Iraq conflict." In his acceptance speech, he said: "I can't think of a more important conversation to be having — war's too strange to be processed alone. I want to thank everyone who picked up the book, who read it and decided to join the conversation." He was the first author to win the prize for his first book-length work of fiction since
Julia Glass Julia Glass (born March 23, 1956) is an American novelist. Her debut novel, ''Three Junes'', won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2002.
in 2002. He had been thought "something of a longshot" to win. ''The New York Times'' included ''Redeployment'' on its list of the "Ten Best Books of 2014", and it received the National Book Critics Circle's 2014
John Leonard Award The John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, established in 2013, is an annual literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) for authors' first books in any genre. Unlike other NBCC awards, recipients are selected by members, n ...
given for a best first book in any genre. In 2015, he received the James Webb Award for fiction dealing with Marines or Marine Corps life from the
Marine Corps Heritage Foundation The National Museum of the Marine Corps is the historical museum of the United States Marine Corps. Located in Triangle, Virginia near MCB Quantico, the museum opened on November 10, 2006, and is now one of the top tourist attractions in the st ...
for ''Redeployment''. In June 2015, ''Redeployment'' received the W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction from the
American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...
. He has named Colum McCann, author of ''
Let the Great World Spin ''Let the Great World Spin'' is a novel by Colum McCann set mainly in New York City in the United States. The book won the 2009 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 International Dublin Literary Award, one of the most lucrative litera ...
'', as his "mentor". Klay describes himself as a Catholic and "a fan of a lot of ... the great Catholic literature– Flannery O'Connor, Francois Mauriac, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh." He has said that "religion and the tradition of Catholic thought ... helps you ask the right kinds of questions about these issues... There's a type of religious sentiment that is very certain of the answers and very certain about what should be proselytized. And then there's another type of religious tradition which is really much more about ... doubt and working your way towards more and more difficult questions. And I think that's the tradition that appeals to me." He is a contributor to '' Granta''. He has also reviewed fiction for '' The New York Times'', '' The Washington Post'', and '' Newsweek''. His stories have appeared in collections as well, including ''The Best American Non-Required Reading 2012'' (Mariner Books) and ''Fire and Forget'' (Da Capo Press, 2013). He has conducted several interviews with other writers and published them on The Rumpus. Princeton University named him a Hodder Fellow for the 2015-2016 academic year. In 2018, he headed the five-member jury that awarded the first
Aspen Words Literary Prize The Aspen Words Literary Prize, established in 2018, is an annual literary award presented by Aspen Words, a literary center in Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pit ...
. In July 2018, Klay was named 2018 winner of the George W. Hunt, S.J., Prize for Journalism, Arts & Letters in the category Cultural & Historical Criticism. Klay’s first novel, entitled ''Missionaries'', was published by
Penguin Press Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...
in October 2020. It was included on Barack Obama’s perennial list of his favorite books of the year. , Klay was a faculty member in the Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) creative writing program at
Fairfield University Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time ...
. In 2022, Klay returned a second time on the
Storybound ''Storybound'' is a podcast created, produced, and hosted by Jude Brewer, with original music composed for each episode. The show is a collaboration between ''Lit Hub'' and The Podglomerate podcast network, featuring household names and Pulitze ...
podcast for a special adaptation of his essay "Citizen Soldier".


Personal life

He married Jessica Alvarez, an attorney, on February 15, 2014.


Selected writings

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


References


External links

*
Alexander J. Kane, "An Interview With Phil Klay", ''The Dartmouth Review'', May 17, 2014

Hannah Silverstein, "'A Vital Responsibility': An Interview With Phil Klay '05", December 10, 2014

PBS NewsHour Interview (video and transcript), November 24, 2014
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Klay, Phil 1983 births Living people People from Westchester County, New York Regis High School (New York City) alumni Dartmouth College alumni Hunter College alumni United States Marine Corps officers United States Marine Corps personnel of the Iraq War National Book Award winners War writers American military writers Writers from New York City 21st-century American short story writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers