see page history
Overview edit
Bibliography
-
(2011)
The Angel Esmeralda
-
(2010)
Point Omega
-
(2007)
Falling Man
-
(2003)
Cosmopolis: A Novel
-
(2001)
The Body Artist
Unbound edit
This content section has been deprecated.
Please help us clean up the page by moving the content from this section into other relevant sections. Once it has been emptied this section will no longer appear on the page but the edit history will still be available in the page's history.
Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American author, playwright and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. DeLillo's novels have tackled subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the digital age, and global terrorism. He currently lives near New York City in the suburb of Bronxville.
Works
Novels
* Americana (1971)
* End Zone (1972)
* Great Jones Street (1973)
* Ratner's Star (1976)
* Players (1977)
* Running Dog (1978)
* Amazons (1980) (under pseudonym "Cleo Birdwell")
* The Names (1982)
* White Noise (1985)
* Libra (1988)
* Mao II (1991)
* Underworld (1997) (see also Pafko at the Wall, the prologue of Underworld which was published separately in Harper's in Oct. 1992)
* The Body Artist (2001)
* Cosmopolis (2003)
* Falling Man (2007)
* Point Omega (2010)
Short stories
* "The River Jordan" (1960) (First published in Epoch 10, No. 2 (Winter 1960), pp. 105–120.)
* "Take the 'A' Train" (1962) (First published in Epoch 12, No. 1 (Spring 1962) pp. 9–25.)
* "Spaghetti and Meatballs" (1965) (First published in Epoch 14, No. 3 (Spring 1965) pp. 244–250)
* "Coming Sun.Mon.Tues." (1966) (First published in Kenyon Review 28, No. 3 (June 1966), pp. 391–394.)
* "Baghdad Towers West" (1967) (First published in Epoch 17, 1968, pp. 195–217.)
* "The Uniforms" (1970) (First published in Carolina Quarterly 22, 1970, pp. 4–11.)
* "In the Men's Room of the Sixteenth Century" (1971) (First published in Esquire, Dec. 1971, pp. 174–177, 243, 246.)
* "Total Lost Weekend" (1972) (First published in Sports Illustrated, Nov. 27, 1972, pp. 98–101+)
* "Creation" (1979) (First published in Antaeus No. 33, Spring 1979, pp. 32–46.)
* "The Sightings" (1979) (First published in Weekend Magazine (Summer Fiction Issue, out of Toronto), August 4, 1979, pp. 26–30.)
* "Human Moments in World War III" (1983) (First published in Esquire, July 1983, pp. 118–126.)
* "The Ivory Acrobat" (1988) (First published in Granta 25, Autumn 1988, pp. 199–212.)
* "The Runner" (1988) (First published in Harper's, Sept. 1988, pp. 61–63.)
* "Pafko at the Wall" (1992) (First published in Harper's, Oct. 1992, pp. 35–70.)
* "The Angel Esmeralda" (1995) (First published in Esquire, May 1994, pp. 100–109.)
* "Baader-Meinhof" (2002) (First published in New Yorker, 1 April 2002, pp. 78–82.)
* "Still Life" (2007) (First published in New Yorker, April 9, 2007)
* "Midnight in Dostoevsky" (2009) (First Published in New Yorker, November 30, 2009)
Plays
* The Day Room (first production 1986)
* Valparaiso (first production 1999)
* Love-Lies-Bleeding (first production 2005)
* The Word for Snow (first production in 2007)
Screenplays
* Game 6 (2005)
Game 6, the story of a playwright (played by Michael Keaton) and his obsession with the Boston Red Sox and the 1986 World Series, was written in the early 90s, but wasn't produced until 2005, ironically one year after the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years. To date, it is DeLillo's only work for film.
Significant essays
* "American Blood: A Journey through the Labyrinth of Dallas and JFK" (1983) (Published in Rolling Stone, Dec. 8, 1983. DeLillo's first major published essay. Seen as signposting his interest in the JFK assassination that would ultimately lead to Libra)
* "Salman Rushdie Defense" (1994) (Co-written with Paul Auster in defense of Salman Rushdie following the announcement of a fatwa upon him after the publication of The Satanic Verses)
* "The Artist Naked in a Cage" (1997)(A short piece ran in The New Yorker on May 26, 1997, pages 6–7. An address delivered on May 13, 1997 at the New York Public Library's event "Stand In for Wei Jingsheng.")
* "The Power of History" (1997) (Published in the Sept. 7, 1997 issue of the New York Times Magazine. Preceded the publication of Underworld and was viewed by many as a rationale for the novel)
* "A History of the Writer Alone in a Room" (1999) (This piece is the acceptance address given by DeLillo on the occasion of being awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 1999. A small pamphlet was printed with this address, an address by Scribner editor-in-chief Nan Graham, the Jury's Citation and an address by Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert. It was reprinted in a German translation in Die Zeit in 2001. The piece is in five numbered sections, and is about five pages long.)
* "In the Ruins of the Future" (Dec 2001) (This short essay appeared in Harper's magazine, December 2001 issue, pages 33–40. It concerns the Sept 11 incidents, terrorism, and America. It consists of eight numbered sections.)
Books about DeLillo
* Bloom, Harold (ed.), Don DeLillo (Bloom's Major Novelists), Chelsea House, 2003.
* Boxall, Peter, Don DeLillo: The Possibility of Fiction, Routledge, 2006.
* Civello, Paul, American Literary Naturalism and its Twentieth-century Transformations: Frank Norris, Ernest Hemingway, Don DeLillo, University of Georgia Press, 1994.
* Cowart, David, Don DeLillo - The Physics of Language, University of Georgia Press, 2002.
* Dewey, Joseph, Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo, University of South Carolina Press, 2006.
* Dewey, Joseph (ed.), Kellman, Steven G. (ed.), Malin, Irving (ed.), Underwords: Perspectives on Don DeLillo's Underworld, University of Delaware Press, 2002.
* Duvall, John, Don DeLillo's Underworld: A Reader's Guide, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002.
* Duvall, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo, Cambridge UP, 2008
* Engles, Tim (ed.), Duvall, John (ed.) ,Approaches to Teaching DeLillo's White Noise, Modern Language Association Press, 2006.
* Halldorson, Stephanie, The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo, 2007.
* Hantke, Steffen, Conspiracy and Paranoia in Contemporary American Fiction: The works of Don DeLillo and Joseph McElroy, Peter Lang Publishing, 1994.
* Kavadlo, Jesse, Don DeLillo: Balance at the Edge of Belief, Peter Lang Publishing, 2004.
* Keesey, Douglas, Don DeLillo, Macmillan, 1993.
* Laist, Randy, Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillo's Novels, Peter Lang Publishing, 2010.
* LeClair, Tom In the Loop - Don DeLillo and the Systems Novel, University of Illinois Press, 1987.
* Lentricchia, Frank (ed.), Introducing Don DeLillo, Duke University Press, 1991.
* Lentricchia, Frank (ed.), New Essays on White Noise, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
* Martucci, Elise, The Environmental Unconscious in the Fiction of Don DeLillo, Routledge, 2007.
* Morley, Catherine, The Quest for Epic in Contemporary American Literature, Routledge, New York, 2008.
* Orr, Leonard, White Noise: A Reader's Guide Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003.
* Osteen, Mark American Magic and Dread: Don DeLillo's Dialogue with Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
* Ruppersburg, Hugh (ed.), Engles, Tim (ed.), Critical Essays on Don DeLillo, G.K. Hall, 2000.
* Schuster, Marc "Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the Consumer Conundrum", Cambria Press, 2008
* Weinstein, Arnold, Nobody's Home: Speech, Self, and Place in American Fiction From Hawthorne to DeLillo, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Awards and award nominations
* 1979 - DeLillo awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
* 1984 - Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
* 1985 - National Book Award for White Noise
* 1985 - National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction, 1985) for White Noise
* 1988 - National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction, 1988) for Libra
* 1988 - New York Times Best Books of the Year (1988) for Libra
* 1988 - National Book Award finalist (Fiction, 1988) for Libra
* 1989 - Irish Times, Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize for Libra
* 1991 - 1991 PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II
* 1992 - 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination for Mao II
* 1995 - 1995 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award
* 1997 - National Book Award finalist nomination for Underworld
* 1997 - New York Times Best Books of the Year nominee for Underworld
* 1998 - 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination for Underworld
* 1998 - 1998 American Book Award for Underworld
* 1999 - 1999 Jersalem Prize awarded for Underworld
* 2000 - 2000 William Dean Howells Medal awarded for Underworld
* 2000 - 2000 "Riccardo Bacchelli" International Award for Underworld
* 2001 - James Tait Black Memorial Prize shortlist (Fiction, 2001) for The Body Artist
* 2006 - 2006 New York Times: Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years (Runner-Up) for Underworld
* 2007 - 2007 New York Times Notable Book of the Year (Fiction and Poetry) for Falling Man
* 2007 - 2007 Booklist Top of the List: A Best of Editors Choice for Falling Man
* 2009 - 2009 Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service for achievements in literature
References in popular culture
* Paul Auster dedicated his books In the Country of Last Things and Leviathan to his friend Don DeLillo.
* Ryan Boudinot<4> and Neal Pollack<38> contributed humor pieces to the journal McSweeney's satirizing DeLillo.
* A fictionalized DeLillo blogs for The Onion. <39>
* Conor Oberst begins his song "Gold Mine Gutted" with "It was Don DeLillo, whiskey, me, and a blinking midnight clock."
* Rhett Miller references Underworld in his song "World Inside a World" saying, "I read it in DeLillo, like he'd written it for me."
* The band The Airborne Toxic Event takes its name from a chemical gas leak of the same name in DeLillo's White Noise.
* Too Much Joy's song "Sort of Haunted House" from Mutiny is inspired by DeLillo; similarly, Too Much Joy spin-off band, Wonderlick, takes its name from an intentional misspelling of the name of the protagonist from Great Jones Street.
* David Foster Wallace claimed DeLillo, and Cynthia Ozick, as two of his great living writers of the English language.
Novels
* Americana (1971)
* End Zone (1972)
* Great Jones Street (1973)
* Ratner's Star (1976)
* Players (1977)
* Running Dog (1978)
* Amazons (1980) (under pseudonym "Cleo Birdwell")
* The Names (1982)
* White Noise (1985)
* Libra (1988)
* Mao II (1991)
* Underworld (1997) (see also Pafko at the Wall, the prologue of Underworld which was published separately in Harper's in Oct. 1992)
* The Body Artist (2001)
* Cosmopolis (2003)
* Falling Man (2007)
* Point Omega (2010)
Short stories
* "The River Jordan" (1960) (First published in Epoch 10, No. 2 (Winter 1960), pp. 105–120.)
* "Take the 'A' Train" (1962) (First published in Epoch 12, No. 1 (Spring 1962) pp. 9–25.)
* "Spaghetti and Meatballs" (1965) (First published in Epoch 14, No. 3 (Spring 1965) pp. 244–250)
* "Coming Sun.Mon.Tues." (1966) (First published in Kenyon Review 28, No. 3 (June 1966), pp. 391–394.)
* "Baghdad Towers West" (1967) (First published in Epoch 17, 1968, pp. 195–217.)
* "The Uniforms" (1970) (First published in Carolina Quarterly 22, 1970, pp. 4–11.)
* "In the Men's Room of the Sixteenth Century" (1971) (First published in Esquire, Dec. 1971, pp. 174–177, 243, 246.)
* "Total Lost Weekend" (1972) (First published in Sports Illustrated, Nov. 27, 1972, pp. 98–101+)
* "Creation" (1979) (First published in Antaeus No. 33, Spring 1979, pp. 32–46.)
* "The Sightings" (1979) (First published in Weekend Magazine (Summer Fiction Issue, out of Toronto), August 4, 1979, pp. 26–30.)
* "Human Moments in World War III" (1983) (First published in Esquire, July 1983, pp. 118–126.)
* "The Ivory Acrobat" (1988) (First published in Granta 25, Autumn 1988, pp. 199–212.)
* "The Runner" (1988) (First published in Harper's, Sept. 1988, pp. 61–63.)
* "Pafko at the Wall" (1992) (First published in Harper's, Oct. 1992, pp. 35–70.)
* "The Angel Esmeralda" (1995) (First published in Esquire, May 1994, pp. 100–109.)
* "Baader-Meinhof" (2002) (First published in New Yorker, 1 April 2002, pp. 78–82.)
* "Still Life" (2007) (First published in New Yorker, April 9, 2007)
* "Midnight in Dostoevsky" (2009) (First Published in New Yorker, November 30, 2009)
Plays
* The Day Room (first production 1986)
* Valparaiso (first production 1999)
* Love-Lies-Bleeding (first production 2005)
* The Word for Snow (first production in 2007)
Screenplays
* Game 6 (2005)
Game 6, the story of a playwright (played by Michael Keaton) and his obsession with the Boston Red Sox and the 1986 World Series, was written in the early 90s, but wasn't produced until 2005, ironically one year after the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years. To date, it is DeLillo's only work for film.
Significant essays
* "American Blood: A Journey through the Labyrinth of Dallas and JFK" (1983) (Published in Rolling Stone, Dec. 8, 1983. DeLillo's first major published essay. Seen as signposting his interest in the JFK assassination that would ultimately lead to Libra)
* "Salman Rushdie Defense" (1994) (Co-written with Paul Auster in defense of Salman Rushdie following the announcement of a fatwa upon him after the publication of The Satanic Verses)
* "The Artist Naked in a Cage" (1997)(A short piece ran in The New Yorker on May 26, 1997, pages 6–7. An address delivered on May 13, 1997 at the New York Public Library's event "Stand In for Wei Jingsheng.")
* "The Power of History" (1997) (Published in the Sept. 7, 1997 issue of the New York Times Magazine. Preceded the publication of Underworld and was viewed by many as a rationale for the novel)
* "A History of the Writer Alone in a Room" (1999) (This piece is the acceptance address given by DeLillo on the occasion of being awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 1999. A small pamphlet was printed with this address, an address by Scribner editor-in-chief Nan Graham, the Jury's Citation and an address by Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert. It was reprinted in a German translation in Die Zeit in 2001. The piece is in five numbered sections, and is about five pages long.)
* "In the Ruins of the Future" (Dec 2001) (This short essay appeared in Harper's magazine, December 2001 issue, pages 33–40. It concerns the Sept 11 incidents, terrorism, and America. It consists of eight numbered sections.)
Books about DeLillo
* Bloom, Harold (ed.), Don DeLillo (Bloom's Major Novelists), Chelsea House, 2003.
* Boxall, Peter, Don DeLillo: The Possibility of Fiction, Routledge, 2006.
* Civello, Paul, American Literary Naturalism and its Twentieth-century Transformations: Frank Norris, Ernest Hemingway, Don DeLillo, University of Georgia Press, 1994.
* Cowart, David, Don DeLillo - The Physics of Language, University of Georgia Press, 2002.
* Dewey, Joseph, Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo, University of South Carolina Press, 2006.
* Dewey, Joseph (ed.), Kellman, Steven G. (ed.), Malin, Irving (ed.), Underwords: Perspectives on Don DeLillo's Underworld, University of Delaware Press, 2002.
* Duvall, John, Don DeLillo's Underworld: A Reader's Guide, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002.
* Duvall, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo, Cambridge UP, 2008
* Engles, Tim (ed.), Duvall, John (ed.) ,Approaches to Teaching DeLillo's White Noise, Modern Language Association Press, 2006.
* Halldorson, Stephanie, The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo, 2007.
* Hantke, Steffen, Conspiracy and Paranoia in Contemporary American Fiction: The works of Don DeLillo and Joseph McElroy, Peter Lang Publishing, 1994.
* Kavadlo, Jesse, Don DeLillo: Balance at the Edge of Belief, Peter Lang Publishing, 2004.
* Keesey, Douglas, Don DeLillo, Macmillan, 1993.
* Laist, Randy, Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillo's Novels, Peter Lang Publishing, 2010.
* LeClair, Tom In the Loop - Don DeLillo and the Systems Novel, University of Illinois Press, 1987.
* Lentricchia, Frank (ed.), Introducing Don DeLillo, Duke University Press, 1991.
* Lentricchia, Frank (ed.), New Essays on White Noise, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
* Martucci, Elise, The Environmental Unconscious in the Fiction of Don DeLillo, Routledge, 2007.
* Morley, Catherine, The Quest for Epic in Contemporary American Literature, Routledge, New York, 2008.
* Orr, Leonard, White Noise: A Reader's Guide Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003.
* Osteen, Mark American Magic and Dread: Don DeLillo's Dialogue with Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
* Ruppersburg, Hugh (ed.), Engles, Tim (ed.), Critical Essays on Don DeLillo, G.K. Hall, 2000.
* Schuster, Marc "Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the Consumer Conundrum", Cambria Press, 2008
* Weinstein, Arnold, Nobody's Home: Speech, Self, and Place in American Fiction From Hawthorne to DeLillo, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Awards and award nominations
* 1979 - DeLillo awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
* 1984 - Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
* 1985 - National Book Award for White Noise
* 1985 - National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction, 1985) for White Noise
* 1988 - National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction, 1988) for Libra
* 1988 - New York Times Best Books of the Year (1988) for Libra
* 1988 - National Book Award finalist (Fiction, 1988) for Libra
* 1989 - Irish Times, Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize for Libra
* 1991 - 1991 PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II
* 1992 - 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination for Mao II
* 1995 - 1995 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award
* 1997 - National Book Award finalist nomination for Underworld
* 1997 - New York Times Best Books of the Year nominee for Underworld
* 1998 - 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination for Underworld
* 1998 - 1998 American Book Award for Underworld
* 1999 - 1999 Jersalem Prize awarded for Underworld
* 2000 - 2000 William Dean Howells Medal awarded for Underworld
* 2000 - 2000 "Riccardo Bacchelli" International Award for Underworld
* 2001 - James Tait Black Memorial Prize shortlist (Fiction, 2001) for The Body Artist
* 2006 - 2006 New York Times: Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years (Runner-Up) for Underworld
* 2007 - 2007 New York Times Notable Book of the Year (Fiction and Poetry) for Falling Man
* 2007 - 2007 Booklist Top of the List: A Best of Editors Choice for Falling Man
* 2009 - 2009 Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service for achievements in literature
References in popular culture
* Paul Auster dedicated his books In the Country of Last Things and Leviathan to his friend Don DeLillo.
* Ryan Boudinot<4> and Neal Pollack<38> contributed humor pieces to the journal McSweeney's satirizing DeLillo.
* A fictionalized DeLillo blogs for The Onion. <39>
* Conor Oberst begins his song "Gold Mine Gutted" with "It was Don DeLillo, whiskey, me, and a blinking midnight clock."
* Rhett Miller references Underworld in his song "World Inside a World" saying, "I read it in DeLillo, like he'd written it for me."
* The band The Airborne Toxic Event takes its name from a chemical gas leak of the same name in DeLillo's White Noise.
* Too Much Joy's song "Sort of Haunted House" from Mutiny is inspired by DeLillo; similarly, Too Much Joy spin-off band, Wonderlick, takes its name from an intentional misspelling of the name of the protagonist from Great Jones Street.
* David Foster Wallace claimed DeLillo, and Cynthia Ozick, as two of his great living writers of the English language.
