Joel Agee (born 20 March 1940 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

) is an American writer and translator. He lives in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

Early life

Joel Agee is the son of the American author

James Agee James Rufus Agee ( ; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for ''Time'', he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. His autob ...

. After his parents divorced in 1941, he and his mother Alma Agee, née Mailman, went to live in Mexico where she met and married the expatriate German novelist

Bodo Uhse Bodo Uhse (12 March 1904 – 2 July 1963) was a German writer, journalist and political activist. He was recognised as one of the most prominent authors in East Germany. Early years Uhse came from a Prussian Junker family with a long tradition ...

. Agee's half-brother Stefan Uhse, born in Mexico in 1946, took his own life in 1973 in New York City. In 1948 the family moved to the Soviet sector of Berlin, where Uhse became editor in chief of the cultural magazine ''Aufbau'', a member of the GDR-

Volkskammer The Volkskammer (, "People's Chamber") was the supreme power organ of East Germany. It was the only branch of government in the state, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs were subservient to it. The Volkskammer was initia ...

, and later chairman of the East German writers association. When her marriage failed in 1960, Alma Uhse relocated with her sons back to the United States. Joel Agee grew up in a literary family, and at an early age was determined to become a writer. Having various times dropped out of school, he was to a certain degree self-educated. He married Susan Lemansky in 1966 and their daughter Gina was born in 1967. A small inheritance enabled him to travel around Europe for two and a half years with his wife and daughter in search of kindred souls interested in founding a commune. During this period, the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was drawn to Buddhism and used drugs, notably LSD. Briefly, before returning to the US, he spent time in an English prison after being busted for possession. Many of these experiences are recounted in his memoir ''In the House of My Fear.''

Career

Joel Agee began freelancing in the 1970s, and his essays began appearing in such prestigious magazines as

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

. In 1980 he became a staff writer for

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. ''Harper's Magazine'' has ...

and in the following year he was named fiction editor. He wrote the memoir ''Twelve Years – An American Boyhood in East Germany'' (1981), followed by ''In the House of My Fear'' (2004). He has translated works by Heinrich von Kleist,

Friedrich Dürrenmatt Friedrich Dürrenmatt (; 5 January 1921 – 14 December 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant- ...

Elias Canetti Elias Canetti (; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994; ; ) was a German-language writer, known as a Literary modernism, modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardi Jews, Sephardic Jewish fam ...

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...

, Gottfried Benn, Hans Erich Nossack, Jürg Federspiel,

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

and others. He has contributed essays, stories, travel pieces and book reviews to

Harper's ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. ''Harper's Magazine'' has ...

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

, and other national publications. In 2022 Melville House Books published Agee's first work of fiction, the novel ''The Stone World.''"In Joel Agee’s wondrous ‘The Stone World’ a boy tries to make sense of life." review by Joan Frank, ''Washington Post'', Feb. 22, 2022.

Works

Fiction

* ''The Stone World''. Melville House Books, Brooklyn, 2022.

Memoirs

* ''Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 1981, republished by The University of Chicago Press, 2000. ** ''Zwölf Jahre – Eine amerikanische Jugend in Ostdeutschland''. Hanser, München, 1982, (translated by Joel Agee and Lola Gruenthal), reprint (with a foreword and text comments) 2009. * ''In the House of My Fear''. Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington DC 2004.

Translations

Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (), is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels. Family M ...

: ''Agathe or, The Forgotten Sister''. New York Review Books, New York 2019. *

: ''Prometheus Bound''. New York Review Books Classics, New York 2015. *

: ''The Secret Heart of the Clock: notes, aphorisms, fragments; 1973–1985''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989. *

: ''Selected writings''. ** Volume 1. Plays. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006. ** Volume 2 Fictions. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006. ** Volume 3: Essays. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006. * Friedrich Dürrenmatt: ''The Pledge''. Boulevard (Mass Market), 2000. * Friedrich Dürrenmatt, ''The Assignment: Or, On the Observing of the Observer of the Observers'', Random House, 1988.* Cordelia Edvardson: ''Burned child seeks the fire: a memoir''. Beacon Press, Boston 1997. * Jürg Federspiel: ''The ballad of Typhoid Mary''. Dutton, New York 1983. * Heinrich von Kleist: ''

Penthesilea Penthesilea () was an Amazonian queen in Greek mythology, the daughter of Ares and Otrera and the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope, and Melanippe. She assisted Troy in the Trojan War, during which she was killed by Achilles or Neoptolemus. The ...

''. Harper Collins, New York 2000. * Hans Erich Nossack: ''The End. Hamburg 1943'', University of Chicago Press, London 2006. *

: ''Letters on Cézanne'', Fromm International Publishers, 1982; republished, with corrections and improvements and a translator's foreword, by North Point Press, 2002. *

: ''Rilke and Benvenuta: an intimate correspondence'', Fromm International Publishers, 1987. * Karlo Štajner, ''Seven Thousand Days in Siberia'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988.

Selected essays and articles

* "The Calm Before the Storm" (review of Aharon Appelfeld's ''The Age of Wonders''), ''The New York Times'', December 27, 1981. * "The Rhine Runs Through It", ''Travel and Leisure'' Aug. 1998. * "By a Dead Lake" (review of Elfriede Jelinek's novel ''Greed''), ''New York Times'', April 15, 2007. * "The Good German" (review of Günter Grass's memoir ''Peeling the Onion''), ''The Washington Post'', July 8, 2007. * "A lie that tells the truth: Memoir and the art of memory", ''Harper's Magazine'', Nov. 2007. * "German lessons", ''archipelago'', Volume 7, Number 1. * "Killing a Turtle", ''archipelago'', Volume 7, Number 1. * "Foreword: ''The End'', by Hans Erich Nossack", review, ''archipelago'', Volume 8, Number 4. * "Not found, not lost", ''Tricycle'', Winter 2008.

Awards

* ''

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

and a grant from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

'' * ''DAAD fellowship from the

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (German: Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD) is a residential program for artists of all countries and ages run by the German Academic Exchange Service (German: 'Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst', DAAD) ...

of the

German Academic Exchange Service The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD; ), founded in 1925, is a joint organization of German universities and student bodies to foster their international relations. Since 1 January 2020, the president has been Joybrato Mukherjee. Organisa ...

'' (1990–91) * '' Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize'' for the translation of Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea (1999) * ''The Modern Language Association’s Lois Roth Award'' for the translation of Hans Erich Nossack's ''Der Untergang'' (2004) * '' The ALTA National Translation Award'' (2007) * '' The Berlin Prize'' of the American Academy in Berlin (2008) * '' Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize'' finalist (2007)

References

External links

* Bio from New York Review Books pag

* Poets & Writer

*
Website of Joel Agee
* Entry for Joel Agee in Perlentauche

Leseprobe
(PDF; 549 kB) from ''Zwölf Jahre – Eine amerikanische Jugend in Ostdeutschland'' (2009) on the site of Carl Hanser Verlags {{DEFAULTSORT:Agee, Joel 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers American autobiographers 21st-century American translators Writers from New York City 1940 births Living people 20th-century American essayists 21st-century American essayists American male essayists American expatriates in Mexico