Michiko Kakutani

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Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani at Tribeca Disruptive Innovation.jpg
Accepting the 2018 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award
Born (1955-01-09) January 9, 1955 (age 70)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Other namesMichi
Education Yale University (BA)
Occupations
  • Critic
  • author
  • journalist
Employers
Parents
Relatives Yoshiko Uchida (aunt)
Awards Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (1998)

Michiko Kakutani (ミチコ・カクタニ, 角谷 美智子 , born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for The New York Times from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998.

Contents

Early life and family

Kakutani, a Japanese American, was born on January 9, 1955, in New Haven, Connecticut. She is the only child of Yale mathematician Shizuo Kakutani and Keiko "Kay" Uchida. Her father was born in Japan, and her mother was a second-generation Japanese-American who was raised in Berkeley, California. [1] [2] Kakutani's aunt, Yoshiko Uchida, was an author of children's books. [1] Kakutani received her bachelor's degree in English literature from Yale University in 1976. [3]

Career

Kakutani initially worked as a reporter for The Washington Post , and then from 1977 to 1979 for Time magazine. In 1979, she joined The New York Times as a reporter. [3]

Literary critic

Kakutani was a literary critic for The New York Times from 1983 until her retirement in 2017. [3] She gained particular notoriety for her sometimes-biting reviews of books from famous authors, with Slate remarking that "her name became a verb, and publishers have referred to her negative reviews as 'getting Kakutani'ed'". [4]

More than one of the authors who had received such reviews gave harsh public responses. In 2006, Kakutani called Jonathan Franzen's The Discomfort Zone "an odious self-portrait of the artist as a young jackass";[ This quote needs a citation ] Franzen subsequently called Kakutani "the stupidest person in New York City". [5] [6] In 2012, Kakutani wrote a negative review of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Antifragile . [7] [ non-primary source needed ][ original research? ] In 2018, writing about reviewers that include Kakutani—whether about the Antifragile review, or otherwise—six years after Antifragile, Taleb stated that

someone has to have read the book to notice that a reviewer is full of baloney, so in the absence of skin in the game, reviewers such as Michiko Kakutani can go on forever without anyone knowing they are either fabricating or drunk (or, as I am certain, in the case of Kakutani, both)". [8]

(Daniel Takeshi, an academic computer scientist, responded to Taleb, stating, "If you can get used to Taleb’s idiosyncratic and pompous writing style, such as mocking... Thomas L. Friedman... and insulting Michiko Kakutani... there’s actually some nice insights". [9] ) According to Kira Cochrane in The Guardian , such counterattacks may have bolstered Kakutani's reputation as commendably "fearless." [5]

She has been known to write reviews in the voice of movie or book characters, including Brian Griffin, [10] [ non-primary source needed ] Austin Powers, [11] [ non-primary source needed ] Holden Caulfield, [12] [ non-primary source needed ] Elle Woods of Legally Blonde , [13] [ non-primary source needed ] and Truman Capote's character Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's . [14] [ non-primary source needed ][ original research? ]

Kakutani announced that she was stepping down as chief book critic of the Times on July 27, 2017. [6] [15] In an article summarizing her book reviewing career, a writer in Vanity Fair called her "the most powerful book critic in the English-speaking world" and credited her with boosting the careers of George Saunders, Mary Karr, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, and Zadie Smith. [6]

Later work

In 2018, Kakutani published a book criticizing the Trump administration titled The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump. [16] In it, Kakutani draws parallels between postmodern philosophy and the number of false or misleading statements made by Trump. In an interview for the book, she argued: [17]

With its suspicion of grand, overarching narratives, postmodernism emphasized the role that perspective plays in shaping our readings of texts and events [...] and it opened the once-narrow gates of history to heretofore marginalized points of view. But as such, ideas seeped into popular culture and merged with the narcissism of the 'Me Decade' [and] also led to a more reductive form of relativism that allowed people to insist that their opinions were just as valid as objective truths verified by scientific evidence or serious investigative reporting".

Kakutani's second book, Ex-Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Re-Read, an essay collection about books that she considers personally and culturally influential, was published in 2020. [18]

In 2024, Kakutani published her third book, The Great Wave: The Era of Radical Disruption and the Rise of the Outsider. [19]

Personal life

Kakutani is a fan of the New York Yankees. [20] [21] As of 2018, she lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. [22]

During her career at The New York Times, Kakutani developed a reputation as an extremely private person who was seldom seen in public, with articles describing her as "mysterious" and "reclusive". [23] [24] [25] Shawn McCreesh, writing in New York magazine, said that "you were likelier to have seen a snow leopard in Manhattan than to meet Kakutani in the wild". [22] However, upon the publication of The Death of Truth, Kakutani began giving interviews to print outlets, though she declined to appear on television. [22]

Media references

Publications

Awards

References

  1. 1 2 Kakutani, Michiko (July 13, 2018), "I Know What Incarceration Does to Families. It Happened to Mine.", The New York Times
  2. ↑ Niiya, Bruce. "Yoshiko Uchida". Densho . Retrieved July 14, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Criticism — Biography". Pulitzer Prizes. 1998. Archived from the original on July 4, 2007. Retrieved July 9, 2007..
  4. ↑ Martinelli, Marissa (July 27, 2017). ""The Stupidest Person in New York City": How Authors Responded to Michiko Kakutani's Harshest Reviews". Slate . Retrieved July 15, 2022.
  5. 1 2 Cochrane, Kira (April 30, 2008). "Don't mess with Michiko Kakutani". The Guardian . Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 Pompeo, Joe (2017). "Michiko Kakutani, the Legendary Book Critic and the Most Feared Woman in Publishing, Is Stepping Down from The New York Times". The Hive. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  7. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (December 16, 2012). "'Antifragile,' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb". The New York Times . Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  8. ↑ Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2018). Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life. Random House Publishing Group. p. 44. ISBN   9780425284636.
  9. ↑ Takeshi, Daniel (December 31, 2022). "Books Read in 2022". Seita's Place (danieltakeshi.github.io). Retrieved May 23, 2025.
  10. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (December 6, 2010). "Marilyn, Dostoyevsky and Me, Her Pup". The New York Times. Retrieved December 6, 2010.
  11. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (July 23, 2002). "Hipoisie and Chic-oisie And London Had the Mojo". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2007.
  12. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (August 23, 2005). "Who's Afraid of Holden Caulfield?". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2007.
  13. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (June 19, 2005). "Digging For Gold In Stilettos And Silk". The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  14. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (October 24, 2005). "Tru, Dear, There's Only One Holly. Moi". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2007.
  15. ↑ "Michiko Kakutani Is Retiring", Press Run, NYT, July 27, 2017.
  16. ↑ Zack, Jessica (July 17, 2018). "Book critic Michiko Kakutani takes on Trump in 'The Death of Truth'". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved July 19, 2018.
  17. ↑ Been, Eric Allen (July 25, 2018). "Michiko Kakutani, esteemed book critic, has finally written a book. It's about Trump". Vox . Retrieved July 15, 2022.
  18. ↑ "Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread". Book Reporter. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
  19. ↑ "The Great Wave". Penguin Random House . Retrieved February 20, 2024.
  20. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (October 22, 2004). "In a Fan's Eyes, the World Turns Upside Down". The New York Times. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  21. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (January 26, 2009). "Insider's View of What Went Wrong in the Bronx". The New York Times. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  22. 1 2 3 McCreesh, Shawn (July 23, 2018). "230 Minutes With Michiko Kakutani" . Vulture . Retrieved July 15, 2022.
  23. 1 2 Dowd, Maureen (January 25, 2020). "Bowen Yang of 'S.N.L.' Is a Smash. And a Mensch". The New York Times. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
  24. ↑ Pilkington, Ed (May 11, 2010). "'This remarkably tedious novel': Michiko Kakutani skewers Martin Amis". The Guardian . Retrieved July 15, 2022.
  25. ↑ Paulson, Steve (July 3, 2005). "Michiko Kakutani: You know when you've been Kakutanied". The Independent . Retrieved July 15, 2022.
  26. ↑ Waters, Juliet (October 13, 2005). "Candace Bushnell moves from chick lit to fem lit with Lipstick Jungle". Montreal Mirror. Archived from the original on May 12, 2006. Retrieved July 9, 2007.
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