Clarence Major

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Clarence Major
Clarence Major 2017.jpg
Major in 2017
Born (1936-12-31) December 31, 1936 (age 88)
Occupation(s)Poet, painter, and novelist
Spouse
Pamela Ritter Major
(m. 1980)
[1]
Children6 [1]
Awards PEN Oakland/Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award, 2016
Website clarencemajor.com

Clarence Major (born December 31, 1936) is an American poet, painter, and novelist; and winner of the 2015 "Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts", presented by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. [2] He was awarded the 2016 PEN Oakland/Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award. [3]

Contents

Biography

Clarence Major was born on December 31, 1936, in Atlanta, Georgia, [4] and grew up in Chicago.

Major is distinguished professor emeritus of 20th-Century American Literature at the University of California, Davis. [5] His literary archives are in the Givens Collection of African American Literature, Anderson Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Minnesota.

Teaching

Major has taught literature and/or creative writing at Brooklyn College, New York University, Queens College, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Washington, Howard University, University of Maryland, University of Colorado, Temple University, Binghamton University, the University of California at Davis and on a Fulbright-Hays Exchange award he taught American culture at the University of Nice, in France, 1981–1983. He left the University of Colorado in 1989 and he taught at the University of California, Davis, for 18 years before his retirement in 2007.

Recognition

Major won a National Council on the Arts Award for his poetry collection Swallow the Lake in 1970, and the following year was awarded a New York Cultural Foundation grant for poetry. Reflexe et Ossature (1982), the French translation of Reflex and Bone Structure (1975), was nominated for the Prix Maurice Coindreau (1982). Such Was The Season (1987) was a Literary Guild book club selection in 1988. The same year The New York Times Book Review recommended it on its annual "Summer Reading" list. Painted Turtle: Woman With Guitar (1988) was cited by The New York Times Book Review as a "Notable Book of The Year" 1988. In 1990, his short-story collection, Fun & Games, was nominated for the Los Angeles Book Critics Award. [6]

Major won a Bronze Medal as a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999 for Configurations: New and Selected Poems 1958–1998 (Copper Canyon Press). [7] He won the Pushcart Prize for the short story "My Mother and Mitch", in 1989. In 2002 he won the Stephen Henderson Poetry Award for Outstanding Achievement, presented by the African American Literature and Culture Society. His 1986 novel My Amputations won the Western States Book Award and was republished in 2008 with an introduction by Lawrence Hogue. Dirty Bird Blues won the Sister Circle Book Award in 1999.

Major was awarded the International Literary Hall of Fame award (Chicago State University) in 2001. He received the "2015 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts" from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. [1] He was awarded the 26th annual PEN Oakland/Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award on December 3, 2016. In January 2017, From Now On: New and Selected Poems was nominated for the 2017 Northern California Book Award sponsored by The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.

In 2021, Major was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. [8] [9]

Anthologies

Major has edited several anthologies, most recently Calling the Wind: 20th Century African-American Short Stories (1993) and The Garden Thrives: 20th Century African-American Poetry (1996). His own work has appeared in The Norton Anthology of American Literature and The Pushcart Prize: The Best of The Small Presses , among others.

Periodicals

Major's fiction, poetry, nonfiction and book reviews have appeared in periodicals, including The New Yorker , Harvard Review , The New York Times Book Review , and The Literary Review .

Visual arts

Self-portrait by Clarence Major Clarence Major.jpg
Self-portrait by Clarence Major

Major studied drawing and painting under the direction of painter Gus Nall (1919–1995) from 1952 to 1954. Major also attended sketch and lecture classes during the same period in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago. [2] Among his teachers there was Addis Osborne (1914–2011). [10]

Education

Major has attended or received degrees from the following institutions:[ citation needed ]

Bibliography

Novels

Short story collections

Poetry collections

Nonfiction

Anthology appearances

References

  1. 1 2 3 Shell, Cheryl (October 27, 2018). "Clarence Major (1936- ) •".
  2. 1 2 Foundation, Poetry (October 11, 2020). "Clarence Major". Poetry Foundation . Retrieved October 12, 2020.
  3. "PEN Oakland awards and winners". PEN Oakland. 2016. Archived from the original on May 14, 2019. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Clarence Major 1936–". Encyclopedia.com . May 11, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  5. "Clarence Major | Professor Emeritus". Department of English, UC Davis. February 26, 2015.
  6. "Tue, 09.08.1936 | Clarence Major, Novelist, and Poet born". AAREG. Retrieved November 27, 2022.
  7. "Clarence Major | Finalist, 1999 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  8. Davis, Jeanne (April 1, 2021). "3 Writers to be Inducted into Georgia Writers Hall of Fame". WUGA. University of Georgia. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  9. "Hall of Fame Honorees | Clarence Major". Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on November 15, 2021. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  10. Major, Clarence (2019). "The Education of a Painter". The Paintings and Drawings of Clarence Major. The University Press of Mississippi. p. 10. ISBN   9781496820716.
  11. Major, Clarence (1970). "Dictionary of Afro-American Slang". ERIC .