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Garth Greenwell

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Garth Greenwell
Born (1978-03-19) March 19, 1978 (age 47)
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
EducationInterlochen Arts Academy
Alma materState University of New York at Purchase (BA)
Washington University in St. Louis (MFA)
Harvard University (MA)
OccupationNovelist
Known forWhat Belongs to You
Cleanness
Small Rain

Garth Greenwell (born March 19, 1978) is an American novelist, literary critic, and educator. He has published the novels What Belongs to You (2016), which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year; Cleanness (2020); and Small Rain (2024), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.[1][2] He has also published the novella Mitko (2011), as well as stories and criticism in The Paris Review, A Public Space, The Yale Review, The New Yorker and The Atlantic.[3][4][5][6]

Among other prizes, he was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award.[7][8] He was a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the 2021 Vursell Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.[9]

Early life

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Garth Greenwell was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 19, 1978. He attended duPont Manual High School in Louisville and graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, in 1996. He went on to study voice at the Eastman School of Music, then transferred to earn a BA degree in Literature with a minor in Lesbian and Gay Studies from the State University of New York at Purchase in 2001. He then received an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MA in English and American Literature from Harvard University, where he also spent three years doing Ph.D. coursework.[10]

Career

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Early in his career, Greenwell taught English at Greenhills School, a private high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at the American College of Sofia in Bulgaria; the oldest American educational institution outside the US.[11] His frequent book reviews in the literary journal West Branch transitioned into a yearly column called "To a Green Thought: Garth Greenwell on Poetry."[12][13][14] In 2013, Greenwell returned to the United States after living in Bulgaria to attend the Iowa Writers' Workshop as an Arts Fellow.

For his poetry, he received received the Grolier Prize, the Rella Lossy Award, an award from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, and the Bechtel Prize from the Teachers & Writers Collaborative.[15] He was the 2008 John Atherton Scholar for Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.[15] Greenwell's first novella, Mitko, won the Miami University Press Novella Prize[16] and was a finalist for the Edmund White Award as well as the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Debut Fiction.[16]

His debut novel, What Belongs to You, was called the "first great novel of 2016" by Publishers Weekly.[17] The book follows an American teacher who meets a charismatic young sex-worker and becomes ensnared in a relationship of mutual predation and romance. It won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, among several other prizes.

Greenwell's second novel, Cleanness, was published in January 2020 and was well received by critics.[18][19][20] It was a New York Times Notable Book and chosen by Dwight Garner as one of the Top Ten Book of the Year, as well as named a Best Book of the Year by over 30 Publications.[21][22] Longlisted for the Prix Sade, the Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize, and the Gordon Burn Prize, the book showcases the same American teacher from Greenwell's debut novel, What Belongs to You, as he navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love.

In 2024, Greenwell published his third novel, Small Rain, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award.[23] It was longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and was named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, BBC, and many other publications.[24] It follows the same narrator from Greenwell's previous two books, who undergoes a health crisis and is hospitalized  in the ICU.[25] Confined to bed, the narrator is plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system during the Covid-19 pandemic.[26] In The Chicago Tribune, John Warner called the book "One of the most profound reading experiences I've ever had."[27]

Greenwell is also active as a critic. His essay "A Moral Education", on Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater, was widely discussed, receiving "a rapturous reception," according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.[28][29] He has also written on Andrew Holleran, Raven Leilani, Pedro Lemebel, and Georgi Gospodinov, among others.[30][31][32][33] Since November 2022 he has written essays about visual art, film, music, and literature for the Substack newsletter To a Green Thought. His essay on Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, first published in To a Green Thought, was reprinted in The Point.[34]

Awards and Recognition

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Literary prizes

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Year Title Award Category Result Ref.
2010 Mitko Lambda Literary Awards Debut Fiction Finalist
Miami University Press Novella Prize — Won
2011 Edmund White Award — Finalist
2016 What Belongs to You Center for Fiction First Novel Prize — Shortlisted
Green Carnation Prize — Shortlisted
James Tait Black Memorial Prize Fiction Shortlisted
National Book Award Fiction Longlisted
2017 British Book Awards Debut of the Year Won
International Dublin Literary Award — Longlisted
Lambda Literary Awards Gay Fiction Finalist
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Fiction Finalist
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction — Finalist
2020 Cleanness Gordon Burn Prize — Longlisted
Lambda Literary Awards Gay Fiction Finalist
L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize — Longlisted
2021 Le Prix Sade — Longlisted
2025 Small Rain National Book Critics Circle Award Fiction Pending
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction — Won

Other things

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Year Awards
2021
  • Harold D. Vursell Memorial Prize, for distinguished prose style, The American Academy of Arts and Letters
2020
  • Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
  • Monroe K Spears Prize for best essay published in 2020, The Sewanee Review
2016
  • OUT 100 Honoree, Out Magazine
2010
  • Bechtel Prize for writing on literary arts education, selected by Phillip Lopate, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2010  
2008
  • Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation
2001
  • Rella Lossy Poetry Award, Poetry Center & American Poetry Archive, SFSU

Bibliography

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Novels

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  • —— (2016). What Belongs to You (hardcover 1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374288228.
  • —— (2020). Cleanness (hardcover 1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374124588.
  • —— (2024). Small Rain (hardcover 1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374279547.

Anthologies (edited)

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  • Kink, co-edited with R. O. Kwon. Simon & Schuster. 2021.

Short fiction

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Year Title[a] First published Reprinted/collected Notes
2011 Mitko Mitko. Miami University Press. 2011. Novella
2014 Gospodar "Gospodar". The Paris Review, Vol. 209. 2014.
2017 An Evening Out Greenwell, Garth (August 21, 2017). "An Evening Out". The New Yorker. Vol. 93, no. 24. pp. 62–69.
2018 The Frog King "The Frog King". The New Yorker. Vol. 94, no. 42. November 26, 2018. pp. 74–81.
2019 Harbor "Harbor". The New Yorker. September 16, 2019.

Essays and reporting

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Adaptations

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What Belongs to You was adapted as a 2021 opera by composer/librettist David T. Little. The premiere production was by Mark Morris, starring Karim Sulayman as the narrator, and conducted by Alan Pierson.[35]

Notes

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  1. ^ Short stories unless otherwise noted.

References

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  1. ^ "British Book Awards | Winner | Début Book of the Year | 2017 | Awards and Honors | LibraryThing". LibraryThing.com. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  2. ^ "Announcing the Winner of the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction | The PEN/Faulkner Foundation". www.penfaulkner.org. Retrieved 2025-04-08.
  3. ^ Greenwell, Garth (2014-01-01). "Gospodar". Paris Review. No. 209. ISSN 0031-2037. Archived from the original on 2016-03-13. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  4. ^ "Garth Greenwell: "A Moral Education"". The Yale Review. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  5. ^ "Garth Greenwell". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 2016-03-10. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  6. ^ Greenwell, Garth. "Garth Greenwell". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  7. ^ "The PEN/Faulkner Award | The PEN/Faulkner Foundation". www.penfaulkner.org. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  8. ^ "James Tait Black Fiction Prize". What? Me Read?. 2017-10-06. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  9. ^ "Garth Greenwell – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation…". Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  10. ^ Barone, Joshua (January 9, 2020). "Garth Greenwell Comes Clean". New York Times. p. C6. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 14, 2021. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
  11. ^ "Faculty". acs.bg. Archived from the original on 2016-03-13. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  12. ^ "To a Green Thought: Garth Greenwell on Poetry" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-12. Retrieved 2011-12-11.
  13. ^ Greenwell, Garth. "The First Thing and the Last" and "Two Elegists" in West Branch.
  14. ^ "Teacher Garth Greenwell's New Poetry Column: To a Green Thought". Green Hill School. January 8, 2009. Archived from the original on April 5, 2012. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
  15. ^ a b "The Bechtel Prize: 2010 Winner and Finalists" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-11-08. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
  16. ^ a b "Miami University Press - Mitko". Archived from the original on 2012-04-06. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
  17. ^ Habash, Gabe (2015-12-04). "Staff Pick: 'What Belongs to You' by Garth Greenwell". PublishersWeekly.com. Archived from the original on 2016-04-05. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  18. ^ Garner, Dwight (2020-01-13). "Sex, Violence and Self-Discovery Collide in the Incandescent 'Cleanness'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-01-15. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
  19. ^ Greenblatt, Leah (2020-01-14). "These gorgeous new novels explore sex with empathy, complexity, and radical honesty". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 2020-01-15. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
  20. ^ Hermann, Nellie (2020-01-10). "Review: Garth Greenwell's 'Cleanness' thrums with life's questions". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2020-01-15. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
  21. ^ "100 Notable Books of 2020". The New York Times. 2020-11-20. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  22. ^ Garner, Dwight; Sehgal, Parul; Szalai, Jennifer (2020-12-02). "Times Critics' Top Books of 2020". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  23. ^ "Announcing the Finalists for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction | The PEN/Faulkner Foundation". www.penfaulkner.org. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  24. ^ Maher, John; Stewart |, Sophia. "The National Book Critics Circle Inaugurates Award Longlists". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
  25. ^ "Garth Greenwell on His Novel "Small Rain" and Writing About the Body…". The Yale Review. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  26. ^ "Small Rain". Macmillan Publishers. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  27. ^ "'Small Rain' is gripping autofiction - West". digitaledition.chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  28. ^ "'Small Rain' is gripping autofiction - West". digitaledition.chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  29. ^ "Garth Greenwell: "A Moral Education"". The Yale Review. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  30. ^ Greenwell, Garth (2022-06-06). "Andrew Holleran Chronicles Life After Catastrophe". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  31. ^ "On a Sentence by Raven Leilani". The Sewanee Review. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  32. ^ Greenwell, Garth (2015-01-28). "A Surreal End for an Unforgettable Queen: Pedro Lemebel, 1952-2015". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  33. ^ Greenwell, Garth (2015-04-17). "The Bulgarian Sadness of Georgi Gospodinov". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  34. ^ Greenwell, Garth (2024-05-23). "The Zone of Interest". The Point Magazine. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  35. ^ "David T Little - What Belongs to You".
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