Nicholas Christopher

Nicholas Christopher was born and raised in New York City. He was educated at Harvard College. Afterward, he traveled and lived abroad. He became a regular contributor to the New Yorker in his early twenties, and began publishing his work in other leading magazines, both in the United States and abroad, including Esquire, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, the Nation, Granta, and the Paris Review. He is the author of seventeen books: six novels, The Soloist (Viking), Veronica, A Trip to the Stars, Franklin Flyer, The Bestiary, and Tiger Rag (all published by Dial Press); eight books of poetry, On Tour with Rita (Knopf), A Short History of the Island of Butterflies, Desperate Characters: A Novella in Verse, In the Year of the Comet, 5° (all published by Viking Penguin); The Creation of the Night Sky, Atomic Field: Two Poems, and Crossing the Equator: New & Selected Poems, 1972-2004 (all published by Harcourt), and On Jupiter Place (Counterpoint); a nonfiction book, Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir & the American City (Free Press); and a novel for children, The True Adventures of Nicolò Zen (Knopf). He has also edited two poetry anthologies: Under 35 (Anchor) and Walk on the Wild Side (Scribner). His work has been widely translated and published in over a dozen other countries — including Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Korea, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, Serbia and Poland — as well as the United Kingdom. He has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Poetry, the Paris Review 50th Anniversary Anthology, the Best American Poetry, Poet's Choice, the Everyman's Library Poems of New York and Conversation Pieces, the Norton Anthology of Love, the Faber Book of Movie Verse, Urban Nature, The Music Lover's Poetry Anthology, American Poets Against the [Iraq] War, Orpheus and Company, Poetry 180, Visiting Walt, Gods & Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths, Night Errands, Grand Street Reader, and In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper. He has translated the poems of Martial and Catullus and the work of several modern Greek poets, including George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos. He is a Professor in the graduate Writing Program of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. He lives in New York City.