Burkhard Bilger

Last updated
Burkhard Bilger
Burkhard Bilger author talk at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.jpg
Burkhard Bilger (left) with Atul Gawande (right) at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
Born1964 (age 5960)
Alma mater Yale University
Occupation(s)Journalist, author
Notable workFatherland, Noodling for Flatheads

Burkhard Bilger (born 1964) is an American journalist and author best known for his work as a staff writer for The New Yorker. He was born in January 1964 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Bilger has received recognition for his books Fatherland (2023) and Noodling for Flatheads (2000).

Contents

Early life

Burkhard Bilger was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in January 1964. He was born to Hans Bilger and Edeltraut Bilger née  Gönner. His father was a professor at Oklahoma State University, earning his PhD in Physics in 1961 from the University of Basel. [1] His mother was a teacher and later earned her PhD in History from Oklahoma State University and taught at Phillips University and St. Gregory's University. [2] His parents emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1962. [3] Bilger graduated from Stillwater High School. In 1982, he enrolled at Yale University, where he pursued a dual degree in English and French. Bilger completed his undergraduate studies in 1986. [4]

Career

Burkhard Bilger joined The New Yorker in 2001 as a staff writer, where he has contributed to the publication's editorial content. His written works have been featured in various publications including The Atlantic , Harper's Magazine , and The New York Times . Bilger's writings have been anthologized ten times in The Best American Series . Bilger was the series editor for The Best American Science and Nature Writing for 2000 and 2001. [5] [6]

In recognition of his contributions to literature and journalism, Bilger has been awarded fellowships from Yale University, MacDowell, and the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. [7]

In addition to his career as a journalist, Bilger is an author. His debut book, Noodling for Flatheads, was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. His book Fatherland, about his grandfather's experience in wartime Alsace, was published in 2023. [7]

Personal life

He lives in Brooklyn [8] with his wife Jennifer Nelson [9] with whom he has three children. [1] He and his wife perform in a band called Nine Pound Hammer, alongside actor Michael Shapiro. [10]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph Ellison</span> American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer (1913–1994)

Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stillwater, Oklahoma</span> City in Oklahoma, United States

Stillwater is the tenth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the county seat of Payne County, Oklahoma. It is located in north-central Oklahoma at the intersection of U.S. Route 177 and State Highway 51. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 48,394. The Stillwater Micropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 78,399 according to the 2012 census estimate. Stillwater was part of the first Oklahoma Land Run held on April 22, 1889, when the Unassigned Lands were opened for settlement and became the core of the new Oklahoma Territory. The city charter was adopted on August 24, 1889, and operates under a council-manager government system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Chiang</span> American science fiction writer (born 1967)

Ted Chiang is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus awards. He has published the short story collections Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) and Exhalation: Stories (2019). His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film Arrival (2016). He was an artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame in 2020–2021. Chiang is also a frequent non-fiction contributor to the New Yorker Magazine, most recently on topics related to computer technology, such as artificial intelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Didion</span> American writer (1934–2021)

Joan Didion was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pico Iyer</span> British essayist and novelist

Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer, known as Pico Iyer, is a British-born essayist and novelist known chiefly for his [writing on explorations both inner and outer ]. He is the author of numerous books on crossing cultures including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk and The Global Soul. He has been a constant contributor to Time,Harper's, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times, among a huge selection of other periodicals

Arthur Edmund Morris was an American-South African writer, known for his biographies of U.S. Presidents. His 1979 book The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and was the first of a trilogy of books on Roosevelt. However, Morris sparked controversy with his 1999 book, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, due to its extensive use of fictional elements.

Sloan Wilson was an American writer.

Edward Hoagland is an American author best known for his nature and travel writing.

John Colapinto is a Canadian journalist, author and novelist and a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 2000, he wrote the New York Times bestseller As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, which exposed the details of the David Reimer case, a boy who had undergone a sex change in infancy—a medical experiment long heralded as a success, but which was, in fact, a failure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Klam</span> American writer

Matthew Klam is an American fiction writer and magazine journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherokee marbles</span> Traditional Cherokee game

Cherokee marbles, or five hole is a traditional game among the Cherokee people of the United States, in which players roll small stone balls between five shallow pits dug into a playing field. Today, the game is commonly played with billiard balls. The game may be played in individual or team play, and in this century, has been introduced into the curricula of students attending schools in the Cherokee Nation. There is also a national tournament held annually during the Cherokee National Holiday.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Samuels (writer)</span> American non-fiction and fiction writer (born 1967)

David Samuels is an American non-fiction and fiction writer. He is the editor of County Highway, a magazine in the form of a 19th-century American broadsheet which he founded with Walter Kirn. He is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, a longtime contributing editor at Harper's Magazine; a contributor to The Atlantic, N+1, The New Yorker and other magazines; and the literary editor of Tablet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabel Wilkerson</span> American journalist (born 1961)

Isabel Wilkerson is an African-American journalist and the author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010) and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020). She is the first woman of African-American heritage to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

<i>The Best American Science and Nature Writing</i>

The Best American Science and Nature Writing is a yearly anthology of popular science magazine articles published in the United States. It was started in 2000 and is part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin. Articles are chosen using the same procedure with other titles in the Best American series; the series editor chooses about 100 article candidates, from which the guest editor picks 25 or so for publication; the remaining runner-up articles listed in the appendix. The series is available through Mariner Books, which since 2019 is an imprint of HarperCollins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Boo</span> American investigative journalist (born 1964)

Katherine "Kate" J. Boo is an American investigative journalist who has documented the lives of people in poverty. She has received the MacArthur Fellowship (2002), the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2012), and her work earned the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for The Washington Post. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 2003. Her book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity won nonfiction prizes from PEN, the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, the New York Public Library, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in addition to the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Hilton Als is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for The New Yorker. He is a former staff writer for The Village Voice and former editor-at-large at Vibe magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon Grice</span> American writer

Gordon Grice is an American science writer and horror writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathryn Schulz</span> American journalist and author

Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article on the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest. In 2023, she won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stillwater High School (Oklahoma)</span> Public, secondary school in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States

Stillwater High School is a public secondary school in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States. It is located at 1224 North Husband Street in Stillwater, Oklahoma and the only high school in Stillwater Public Schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Brock</span> American chef (born 1978)

Sean Brock is an American chef specializing in Southern cuisine.

References

  1. 1 2 "Obituary for Hans Bilger". Stillwater News Press Obituaries. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  2. "Edeltraut Bilger Obituary". Cress Funeral Service. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  3. Bilger, Burkhard (2023). Fatherland. Random House. ISBN   9780385353984.
  4. "Burgers with Burkhard Bilger". This Land Press. July 3, 2013. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  5. "The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2000". HarperCollins. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  6. "The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2001". HarperCollins. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  7. 1 2 "Burkhard Bilger – Contributor Page". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  8. "Burkhard Bilger – Penguin Random House". Penguin Random House. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  9. Dywer, Jim (March 3, 2016). "Making the Journey From Menace to Neighbor, All on One Brooklyn Block". The New York Times. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  10. "Nine Pound Hammer". Hammer County. Retrieved November 15, 2023.