Don DeLillo

Donald Richard Don DeLillo (born November 20,

1936) is an American novelist, playwright and essayist.
His works have covered subjects as diverse as television,
nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of
the digital age, politics, economics, and global terrorism. Initially a well-regarded cult writer, the publication
in 1985 of White Noise brought him widespread recognition, and was followed in 1988 by Libra, a bestseller.
DeLillo has twice been a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nalist
(for Mao II in 1992 and for Underworld in 1998[1] ), won
the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II in 1992 (receiving a
further PEN/Faulkner Award nomination for The Angel
Esmeralda in 2012), was granted the PEN/Saul Bellow
Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and
won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction
in 2013.[2]

period were James Joyce, William Faulkner, Flannery

O'Connor, and Ernest Hemingway, who was a major inuence on DeLillos earliest attempts at writing in his
late teens.[8] As well as the inuence of modernist ction,
DeLillo has also cited the inuence of jazz music "[...]
guys like Ornette Coleman and Mingus and Coltrane and
Miles Davis" -and postwar cinema: "[...] Antonioni and
Godard and Truaut, and then in the '70s came the Americans, many of whom were inuenced by the Europeans:
Kubrick, Altman, Coppola, Scorsese and so on. I don't
know how they may have aected the way I write, but I do
have a visual sense.[9] On the inuence of lm, particularly European cinema, on his work, DeLillo has said,
European and Asian cinemas of the 1960s shaped the
way I think and feel about things. At that time I was living
in New York, I didn't have much money, didn't have much
work, I was living in one room ... I was a man in a small
room. And I went to the movies a lot, watching Bergman,
Antonioni, Godard. When I was little, in the Bronx, I
didn't go to the cinema and I didn't think of the American lms I saw as works of art. Perhaps, in an indirect
way, cinema allowed me to become a writer.[10] DeLillo
also credits his parents leniency and acceptance of his
desire to write for encouraging him to pursue a literary
career: They ultimately trusted me to follow the course
Id chosen. This is something that happens if youre the
eldest son in an Italian family: You get a certain leeway,
and it worked in my case.[11]

DeLillo has described his ction as being concerned with

living in dangerous times,[3] and in a 2005 interview
declared, Writers must oppose systems. Its important
to write against power, corporations, the state, and the
whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments [...] I think writers, by nature, must oppose
things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us.[4]

Early life and Inuences

After graduating from Cardinal Hayes High School in the

Bronx in 1954 and from Fordham University in the Bronx
with a bachelors degree in Communication Arts in 1958,
DeLillo took a job in advertising because he couldn't get
one in publishing. He worked for ve years as a copywriter at the agency of Ogilvy & Mather on Fifth Avenue
at East 48th Street,[12] writing image ads for Sears Roebuck among others, working on Print ads, very undistinguished accounts...I hadnt made the leap to television.
I was just getting good at it when I left, in 1964.[13]
DeLillo published his rst short story, The River Jordan, in Epoch, the literary magazine of Cornell University, in 1960 and began to work on his rst novel in 1966.
Discussing the beginning of his writing career, DeLillo
said, I did some short stories at that time, but very infrequently. I quit my job just to quit. I didn't quit my job
to write ction. I just didn't want to work anymore.[14]
Reecting in 1993 on his relatively late start in writing
ction, DeLillo said I wish I had started earlier, but evidently I wasnt ready. First, I lacked ambition. I may
have had novels in my head but very little on paper and
no personal goals, no burning desire to achieve some end.

DeLillo was born on November 20, 1936 and grew up in

a working-class Italian Catholic family, from Molise, in
an Italian-American neighborhood of the Bronx in New
York City, not far from Arthur Avenue.[5] Reecting on
his childhood in The Bronx, DeLillo later described how
he was "...always out in the street. As a little boy I whiled
away most of my time pretending to be a baseball announcer on the radio. I could think up games for hours
at a time. There were eleven of us in a small house, but
the close quarters were never a problem. I didn't know
things any other way. We always spoke English and Italian all mixed up together. My grandmother, who lived in
America for fty years, never learned English.[6]
As a teenager, DeLillo wasn't interested in writing until
taking a summer job as a parking attendant, where hours
spent waiting and watching over vehicles led to a reading
habit. In a 2010 interview with The Australian, DeLillo
reected on this period by saying I had a personal golden
age of reading, in my 20s and my early 30s, and then
my writing began to take up so much time.[7] Among
the writers DeLillo read and was inspired by in this
1

WORK

Second, I didnt have a sense of what it takes to be a se- cording to DeLillo is structure[d] [...] on the writings
rious writer. It took me a long time to develop this.[15]
of Lewis Carroll, in particular Alice in Wonderland and
Alice Through the Looking Glass[4] took two years to
write[15] and drew numerous favorable comparisons to the
works of Thomas Pynchon. This conceptual monster,
2 Work
as DeLillo scholar Tom LeClair describes it, is the picaresque story of a 14-year-old math genius who joins
an international consortium of mad scientists decoding
2.1 1970s
an alien message.[19] and has been cited by DeLillo as
[20]
and his
DeLillos inaugural decade of novel writing has been his both one of the most dicult books to write
personal
favorite
of
his
own
novels.
most productive to date, resulting in the writing and publication of six novels in eight years between 1971 and Following this early attempt at a major long novel,
1978.[7]
DeLillo ended the decade with two shorter works. Players
In 1964, DeLillo resigned from the advertising indus- (1977), originally conceived as being "[...] based on what
What peotry, moved into a modest apartment near the Queens- could be called the intimacy of language.
[21]
ple
who
live
together
really
sound
like,
concerned
Midtown Tunnel (It wasnt Paris in the 1920s, but I was
the
lives
of
a
young
yuppie
couple
as
the
husband
gets
happy DeLillo has said of this time), and began work on
[21]
[16]
involved
with
a
cell
of
domestic
terrorists.
Its
1978
his rst novel. Reecting on the early days of his writwritten in a brief fouring career, DeLillo remarked: "...I lived in a very min- successor, Running Dog (1978),
[13]
month
streak
of
writing,
was
a thriller concerning
imal kind of way. My telephone would be $4.20 every
numerous
individuals
hunting
down
a celluloid reel of
month. I was paying a rent of sixty dollars a month. And
Hitlers
sexual
exploits.
Of
Running
Dog, DeLillo reI was becoming a writer. So in one sense, I was ignor[13]
marked
in
his
'Rolling
Stone
interview
that What I was
ing the movements of the time. DeLillos rst novel,
[5] really getting at in Running Dog was a sense of the terriAmericana, was written over the course of four years
and nally published in 1971, to modest critical praise. ble acquisitiveness in which we live, coupled with a nal
Americana concerned a television network programmer indierence to the object. After all the mad attempts to
who hits the road in search of the big picture.[5] This acquire the thing, everyone suddenly decides that, well,
novel was later revised by DeLillo in 1989 for paperback maybe we really don't care about this so much anyway.
re-printing. Reecting on the novel later in his career, This was something I felt characterized our lives at the
I
DeLillo admitted, I don't think my rst novel would have time the book was written, in the mid to late seventies.
[22]
think
this
was
part
of
American
consciousness
then.
been published today as I submitted it. I don't think an editor would have read 50 pages of it. It was very overdone
and shaggy, but two young editors saw something that
seemed worth pursuing and eventually we all did some
work on the book and it was published.[17] Later still,
DeLillo still felt a degree of surprise at Americana being published, noting I was working on my rst novel,
'Americana,' for two years before I ever realized that I
could be a writer [...] I had absolutely no assurance that
this book would be published because I knew that there
were elements that I simply didn't know how to improve
at that point. So I wrote for another two years and nished the novel. It wasnt all that dicult to nd a publisher, to my astonishment. I didn't have a representative.
I didnt know anything about publishing. But an editor at
Houghton Miin read the manuscript and decided that
this was worth pursuing.[11]

In 1978, DeLillo was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to fund a trip around the Middle East
before settling in Greece, where he would write his next
novels Amazons and The Names.[7]
Reecting on his rst six novels and his rapid writing
turnover later in his career, DeLillo remarked, I wasn't
learning to slow down and examine what I was doing
more closely. I don't have regrets about that work, but
I do think that if I had been a bit less hasty in starting
each new book, I might have produced somewhat better
work in the 1970s. My rst novel took so long and was
such an eort that once I was free of it I almost became
carefree in a sense and moved right through the decade,
stopping, in a way, only at Ratners Star (1976), which
was an enormous challenge for me, and probably a bigger challenge for the reader. But I slowed down in the
1980s and '90s.[7] DeLillo has also acknowledged some
of the weaknesses of his 1970s works, reecting in 2007:
I knew I wasnt doing utterly serious work, let me put it
that way.[13]

Americana was followed in rapid succession by the American college football/nuclear war black comedy End
Zone (1972) written under the working-titles The SelfErasing Word and Modes of Disaster Technology[18]
and the rock and roll satire Great Jones Street (1973),
which DeLillo later felt was "...one of the books I wish
Id done dierently. It should be tighter, and probably a 2.2 1980s
little funnier.[13] In 1975, he married Barbara Bennett, a
former banker turned landscape designer.
The beginning of the 1980s saw the most unusual and unDeLillos fourth novel, Ratners Star (1976) which ac- characteristic publication in DeLillos career. The sports

2.3

1990s

novel Amazons, a mock memoir of the rst woman to play

in the National Hockey League, is a far more lighthearted
and more evidently commercial novel than his previous
and subsequent novels. DeLillo published the novel under
the pseudonym Cleo Birdwell, and later requested publishers compiling a bibliography for a reprint of a later
novel to expunge the novel from their lists.
While DeLillo spent several years living in Greece,[23] he
took three years[20] to write The Names (1982), a complex
thriller concerning a risk analyst who crosses paths with
a cult of assassins in the Middle East.[5] While lauded by
an increasing number of literary critics, DeLillo was still
relatively unknown outside of small academic circles and
did not reach a wide readership with this novel. Also in
1982, DeLillo nally broke his self-imposed ban on media coverage by giving his rst major interview to Tom
LeClair,[24] who had rst tracked DeLillo down for an
interview while he was in Greece in 1979 (on that occasion, DeLillo had handed LeClair a business card with his
name printed on it and beneath that the message I don't
want to talk about it.)[24]
With the publication of his eighth novel White Noise in
1985, DeLillo began a rapid ascendancy to being a noted
and respected novelist. White Noise was arguably a major breakthrough both commercially and artistically for
DeLillo, earning him a National Book Award for Fiction[25] and a place among the academic canon of contemporary postmodern novelists. DeLillo remained as detached as ever from his growing reputation: when called
upon to give an acceptance speech for the Award, he simply said, I'm sorry I couldn't be here tonight, but I thank
you all for coming, and then sat down.[12][26] The inuence and impact of White Noise can be seen in the writing of such authors as David Foster Wallace, Jonathan
Lethem, Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, Martin Amis,
Zadie Smith and Richard Powers (who provides an introduction to the 25th Anniversary edition of the novel).[23]
Among the 39 proposed titles for the novel were All
Souls, Ultrasonic,[18] The American Book of the
Dead, Psychic Data and Mein Kampf";[27] however,
DeLillo acknowledged in a 2005 interview that White
Noise was a ne choice, remarking Once a title is afxed to a book, it becomes as indelible as a sentence or a
paragraph.[27]
DeLillo followed White Noise with Libra (1988), a speculative ctionalized take on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald
up to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. For this
novel DeLillo undertook a vast research project, which
included reading at least half of the Warren Commission report (subsequently DeLillo described it as "...the
Oxford English Dictionary of the assassination and also
the Joycean novel. This is the one document that captures the full richness and madness and meaning of the
event, despite the fact that it omits about a ton and a half
of material.[15] ) Originally written with the working title of either American Blood or Texas School Book,
Libra became an international bestseller,[5] one of ve -

3
nalists for the National Book Award,[28] and winner of
the next years Irish Times Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. The novel also elicited erce critical division,
with some critics praising DeLillos take on the Kennedy
assassination while others decried it. George Will, in a
Washington Post article,[29] declared the book to be an affront to America and an act of literary vandalism and bad
citizenship.[29] DeLillo has frequently reected on the
signicance of the Kennedy assassination to not only his
own work but American culture and history as a whole,
remarking in one 2005 interview November 22nd 1963
marked the real beginning of the 1960s. It was the beginning of a series of catastrophes: political assassinations,
the war in Vietnam, the denial of Civil Rights and the
revolts that occasioned, youth revolt in American cities,
right up to Watergate. When I was starting out as a writer
it seemed to me that a large part of the material you could
nd in my novels this sense of fatality, of widespread
suspicion, of mistrust came from the assassination of
JFK.[10]

2.3 1990s
DeLillos concerns about the position of the novelist
and the novel in a media- and terrorist-dominated society were made clear in his next novel, Mao II (1991).
Clearly inuenced by the events surrounding the fatwa
placed upon the author Salman Rushdie and the intrusion of the press into the life of the reclusive writer J.
D. Salinger,[5] Mao II earned DeLillo signicant critical
praise from, among others, fellow authors John Banville
and Thomas Pynchon. He earned a PEN/Faulkner Award
and a Pulitzer Prize nalist nomination for Mao II in 1991
and 1992, respectively.
Following Mao II, DeLillo went to ground and spent several years writing and researching his eleventh novel.
Aside from the publication of a folio short story entitled
"Pafko at the Wall" in a 1992 edition of Harpers Magazine, and one short story in 1995, little was seen or heard
of him for a number of years.
In 1997, DeLillo nally broke cover with his long awaited
eleventh novel, the epic Cold War history Underworld.
The book was widely heralded as a masterpiece, with novelist and critic Martin Amis saying it marked the ascension of a great writer.[30] Underworld went on to become
DeLillos most acclaimed novel to date, achieving mainstream success and earning nominations for the National
Book Award[31] and the New York Times Best Books of
the Year in 1997, and a second Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination in 1998. The novel went on to win the
1998 American Book Award, the 1999 Jerusalem Prize,
and both the William Dean Howells Medal and Riccardo
Bacchelli International Award in 2000. It was a runner-up
in the 2006 New York Times survey of the best American
ction of the last 25 years. White Noise and Libra were
also recognized by the anonymous jury of contemporary
writers.

DeLillo has subsequently expressed surprise at the success of the novel. In 2007, he candidly remarked: When
I nished with Underworld, I didn't really have any alltoo-great hopes, to be honest. Its some pretty complicated stu: 800 pages, more than 100 dierent characters whos going to be interested in that?"[6] After rereading it again in 2010, over ten years after its publication, DeLillo commented that re-reading it "...made me
wonder whether I would be capable of that kind of writing
now the range and scope of it. There are certain parts of
the book where the exuberance, the extravagance, I dont
know, the overindulgence... There are city scenes in New
York that seem to transcend reality in a certain way.[12]

2.4

2000s

Although they have received some acclaim in places,

DeLillos post-Underworld novels have been often
viewed by critics as "...disappointing and slight, especially
when held up against his earlier, big-canvas epics,[26]
marking a shift "...away from sweeping, era-dening novels such as White Noise, Libra and Underworld to a
more spare and oblique[26] style, characterized by "[...]
decreased length, the decommissioning of plot machinery
and the steep deceleration of narrative time.[32] DeLillo
has commented on this shift to shorter novels, saying "If
a longer novel announces itself, Ill write it. A novel creates its own structure and develops its own terms. I tend
to follow. And I never try to stretch what I sense is a compact book.[12] In a March 2010 interview, it was reported
that DeLillos deliberate stylistic shift had been informed
by his having recently re-read several slim but seminal
European novels, including Albert Camus's The Stranger,
Peter Handke's The Goalies Anxiety at the Penalty Kick,
and Max Frisch's Man in the Holocene.[7]
After the publication and extensive publicity drive for Underworld, DeLillo once again retreated from the spotlight
to write his twelfth novel, surfacing with The Body Artist
in 2001. The novel contained many established DeLillo
preoccupations, particularly its interest in performance
art and domestic privacies in relation to the wider scope
of events. However, the slight and brief novella was very
dierent in style and tone to the epic history of Underworld, and met with a mixed critical reception.
DeLillo followed The Body Artist with 2003s Cosmopolis,
a modern re-interpretation of James Joyce's Ulysses transposed to New York around the time of the collapse of
the dot-com bubble in the year 2000. This novel was met
at the time with a largely negative reception from critics, with several high prole critics and novelists notably John Updike voicing their objections to the novels
style and tone. When asked in 2005 how he felt about the
novels mixed reception compared to the broader positive
consensus aorded to Underworld, DeLillo remarked: I
try to stay detached from that aspect of my work as a
writer. I didn't read any reviews or articles. Maybe it
[the negative reception] was connected to September 11.

WORK

I'd almost nished writing the book when the attacks took
place, and so they couldn't have had any inuence on the
books conception, nor on its writing. Perhaps for certain
readers this upset their expectations.[10] However, subsequently critical opinions have been revised, the novel
latterly being seen as prescient for its views on the aws
and weaknesses of the international nancial system and
cybercapital.
DeLillos papers were acquired in 2004 by the Harry
Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University
of Texas at Austin,[33] reputedly for half a million
dollars.[18] There are "[one] hundred and twenty-ve
boxes of DeLillo materials, including various drafts and
correspondence.[18] Of his decision to donate his papers
to the Ransom Center, DeLillo is quoted in a fax to curator Tom Staley as explaining his donation being motivated
by the following: "I ran out of space and also felt, as one
does at a certain age, that I was running out of time. I
didnt want to leave behind an enormous mess of papers
for family members to deal with. Of course, Ive since
produced more paper novel, play, essay, etc. and so
the cycle begins again.[18]
DeLillo returned with what would turn out to be his nal novel of the decade with Falling Man in May 2007.
The novel concerned the impact on one family of the
9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New
York, "...an intimate story which is encompassed by a
global event.[6] According to a 2007 interview in Die
Zeit, DeLillo claims that originally he "...didn't ever want
to write a novel about 9/11. and "...had an idea for a
dierent book which he had been working on for half
a year in 2004 when he came up with an idea for the
novel, beginning work on the novel following the reelection of George W. Bush that November.[6] Although
highly anticipated and eagerly awaited by critics, who felt
that DeLillo was one of the contemporary writers best
equipped to tackle the events of 9/11 in novelistic form,
the novel met with a mixed critical reception and garnered
no major literary awards or nominations. DeLillo, however, remained unconcerned by this relative lack of critical acclaim, remarking in 2010, In the 1970s, when I
started writing novels, I was a gure in the margins, and
thats where I belonged. If Im headed back that way,
thats ne with me, because thats always where I felt I belonged. Things changed for me in the 1980s and 1990s,
but Ive always preferred to be somewhere in the corner
of a room, observing.[12]
On April 25, 2009, DeLillo received another signicant
literary award, the 2009 Common Wealth Award for Literature, given by PNC Bank of Delaware.[34]
On July 24, 2009, Entertainment Weekly announced that
the director David Cronenberg (A History of Violence,
Naked Lunch) would write a screenplay adaptation of
Don DeLillos 2003 novel Cosmopolis, with a view to
eventually direct.[35] Cosmopolis, eventually released in
2012, became the rst direct adaptation for the screen of

2.5

2010s

a DeLillo novel, although both Libra and Underworld had

previously been optioned for screen treatments. There
had been discussions about adapting earlier novel End
Zone, and DeLillo himself has written an original screenplay for the lm Game 6.
On November 30, 2009, DeLillo published a new original
short story called Midnight in Dostoevsky in the New
Yorker magazine. It was his rst new original short story
published since Still Life in 2007 prior to the release of
Falling Man.[36]

5
rst novel would have been published today as
I submitted it. I don't think an editor would
have read 50 pages of it. It was very overdone
and shaggy, but two young editors saw something that seemed worth pursuing and eventually we all did some work on the book and it
was published. I don't think publishers have
that kind of tolerance these days, and I guess
possibly as a result, more writers go to writing class now than then. I think rst, ction,
and second, novels, are much more rened in
terms of language, but they may tend to be too
well behaved, almost in response to the narrower market.[17]

DeLillo ended the decade by making an unexpected appearance at a PEN event on the steps of the New York
City Public Library, 5th Ave and 42nd St in support of
Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced
to eleven years in prison for inciting subversion of state However, in a February 21, 2010, interview with The
power on December 31, 2009.[37]
Times newspaper, DeLillo re-armed his belief in the
validity and importance of the novel in a technology- and
media-driven age, oering a more optimistic opinion of
2.5 2010s
the future of the novel than his contemporary Philip Roth
had done in a recent interview:
DeLillo published Point Omega, his fteenth novel, in
February 2010. According to DeLillo, the novel conIt is the form that allows a writer the
siders an idea from "...the writing of the Jesuit thinker
[17]
greatest
opportunity to explore human experiand paleontologist [Pierre] Teilhard de Chardin. The
ence...For
that reason, reading a novel is po'Omega Point' of the title "...[is] the possible idea that
tentially
a
signicant
act. Because there are so
human consciousness is reaching a point of exhaustion
many
varieties
of
human
experience, so many
and that what comes next may be either a paroxysm or
[17]
kinds
of
interaction
between
humans, and so
something enormously sublime and unenvisionable.
many
ways
of
creating
patterns
in the novel
Point Omega is DeLillos shortest novel to date, and he
that
cant
be
created
in
a
short
story,
a play,
has said it could be considered as a companion piece to
a
poem
or
a
movie.
The
novel,
simply,
oers
The Body Artist: In its reections on time and loss, this
more
opportunities
for
a
reader
to
understand
may be a philosophical novel and maybe, considering its
the world better, including the world of artistic
themes, the book shares a place in my work with The
[38]
creation. That sounds pretty grand, but I think
Body Artist, another novel of abbreviated length. Reits true.[12]
views thus far have been polarised, with some saying the
novel is a return to form and innovative, while others have
complained about the novels brevity and apparent lack DeLillo received two further signicant literary awards
of plot and engaging characters. Upon its initial release, in 2010: the St. Louis Literary Award for his entire body
Point Omega spent one week on the New York Times of work to date on October 21, 2010 (previous recipiBestseller List, peaking at #35 on the extended version ents include Salman Rushdie, E.L. Doctorow, John Updike, William Gass, Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion and
of the list during its one-week stay on the list.[39]
Tennessee Williams);[40] and his second PEN Award, the
In a January 29, 2010, interview with the Wall Street JourPEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American
nal, DeLillo discussed at great length Point Omega, his
Fiction, on October 13, 2010.
views of writing, and his plans for the future. When asked
about why his recent novels had been shorter, DeLillo DeLillos rst collection of short stories, The Angel Esreplied, Each book tells me what it wants or what it is, meralda: Nine Stories, covering short stories published
and I'd be perfectly content to write another long novel. It between 1979 and 2011, was published in November
just has to happen.[17] While DeLillo is open to the idea 2011.[41] It has received favorable reviews, and has been
of returning to the form of the long novel, the interview a nalist for both the 2012 Story Prize award[42] and the
also revealed that he currently has no interest in doing as 2012 PEN/Faulkner award for Fiction,[43] as well as bemany of his literary contemporaries have done and writ- ing longlisted for the Frank OConnor International Short
ing a memoir.[17] DeLillo also made some observations Story Award.[44] New York Times Book Review contribon the state of literature and the challenges facing young utor Liesl Schillinger praised it, saying, DeLillo packs
fertile ruminations and potent consolation into each of
writers:
these rich, dense, concentrated stories.[45]
Its tougher to be a young writer today than
when I was a young writer. I don't think my

DeLillo received the 2012 Carl Sandburg Literary Award

on October 17, 2012, on the campus of the University of

Illinois at Chicago. The prize is presented annually to an

acclaimed author in recognition of outstanding contributions to the literary world and honors a signicant work
or body of work that has enhanced the publics awareness
of the written word.[46]
On January 29, 2013, Variety announced that Italian director Luca Guadagnino is to direct an adaptation, called
Body Art, of DeLillos 2001 novel The Body Artist.[47] On
April 26, 2013, it was announced that DeLillo had received the inaugural Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (formerly the Library of Congress Creative
Achievement Award for Fiction), with the presentation
of the award due to take place during the 2013 Library of Congress National Book Festival, Sept. 2122
2013.[2][48][49][50] The prize honours "[...] an American
literary writer whose body of work is distinguished not
only for its mastery of the art but for its originality of
thought and imagination. The award seeks to commend
strong, unique, enduring voices that throughout long,
consistently accomplished careers have told us something about the American experience.[2] In a statement
issued in response to the award, DeLillo said When I
received news of this award, my rst thoughts were of
my mother and father, who came to this country the hard
way, as young people confronting a new language and culture. In a signicant sense, the Library of Congress Prize
is the culmination of their eorts and a tribute to their
memory.[50]
In November 2012, DeLillo revealed that he was at work
on a new novel, his sixteenth, and that the [main] character spends a lot of time watching le footage on a
wide screen, images of a disaster.[51][52] In August 2015,
DeLillos US publishers Simon and Schuster announced
that his seventeenth novel, titled Zero K, will be published
in May 2016.[53] The advanced blurb for the novel is as
follows:
Jerey Lockharts father, Ross, is a George
Soros-like billionaire now in his sixties, with
a younger wife, Artis, whose health is failing.
Ross is the primary investor in a deeply remote
and secret compound where death is controlled
and bodies are preserved until a future moment
when medicine and technology can reawaken
them. Jerey joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say an uncertain farewell to her as
she surrenders her body. Ross Lockhart is not
driven by the hope for immortality, for power
and wealth beyond the grave. He is driven by
love for his wife, for Artis, without whom he
feels life is not worth living. It is that which
compels him to submit to death long before
his time. Jerey heartily disapproves. He is
committed to living, to the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth. Thus begins an emotionally resonant novel that weighs
the darkness of the worldterrorism, oods,

THEMES AND CRITICISM

res, famine, deathagainst the beauty of everyday life; love, awe, the intimate touch of
earth and sun. Brilliantly observed and infused
with humor, Don Delillos Zero K is an acute
observation about the fragility and meaning of
life, about embracing our family, this world,
our language, and our humanity.[53]
In November 2015, DeLillo received the 2015 Medal for
Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the
66th National Book Awards Ceremony. The ceremony
was held on November 8 in New York City, and was presented his award by Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan, a
writer profoundly inuenced by DeLillos work.[54] In his
acceptance speech, DeLillo reected upon his career as a
reader as well as a writer, recalling examining his personal
book collection and feeling a profound sense of personal
connection to literature: Here Im not the writer at all,
Im a grateful reader. When I look at my book shelves
I nd myself gazing like a museum-goer.[55] IN February 2016, DeLillo was the guest of honor at an academic
conference dedicated to his work, Don DeLillo: Fiction
Rescues History, a three-day event held at the Sorbonne
Nouvelle in Paris, France.[56]
DeLillo currently lives near New York City in the suburb
of Bronxville with his wife.[12]

3 Plays
Since 1979, in addition to his novels and occasional essays, DeLillo has been active as a playwright. To date,
DeLillo has written ve major plays: The Engineer of
Moonlight (1979), The Day Room (1986), Valparaiso
(1999), Love Lies Bleeding (2006), and, most recently,
The Word For Snow (2007). Stage adaptations have also
been written for DeLillos novels Libra and Mao II.
Of his work as a playwright, DeLillo has said that he feels
his plays are not inuenced by the same writers as his
novels: I'm not sure who inuenced me [as a playwright].
I've seen some reviews that mention Beckett and Pinter,
but I don't know what to say about that. I don't feel it
myself.[57]

4 Themes and criticism

DeLillos work displays elements of both modernism
and postmodernism.[58] (Though it is worth noting that
DeLillo himself claims not to know if his work is postmodern: It is not [postmodern]. I'm the last guy to ask.
If I had to classify myself, it would be in the long line of
modernists, from James Joyce through William Faulkner
and so on. That has always been my model.)[59] He has
said the primary inuences on his work and development
are abstract expressionism, foreign lms, and jazz.[60]

7
Many of DeLillos books (notably White Noise) satirize
academia and explore postmodern themes of rampant
consumerism, novelty intellectualism, underground conspiracies, the disintegration and re-integration of the family, and the promise of rebirth through violence. In several of his novels, DeLillo explores the idea of the increasing visibility and eectiveness of terrorists as societal actors and, consequently, the displacement of what
he views to be artists, and particularly novelists, traditional role in facilitating social discourse (Players, Mao
II, Falling Man). Another perpetual theme in DeLillos
books is the saturation of mass media and its role in forming simulacra, resulting in the removal of an event from
its context and the consequent draining of meaning (see
the highway shooter in Underworld, the televised disasters longed for in White Noise, the planes in Falling Man,
the evolving story of the interviewee in Valparaiso). The
psychology of crowds and the capitulation of individuals
to group identity is a theme DeLillo examines in several
of his novels, especially in the prologue to Underworld,
Mao II, and Falling Man. In a 1993 interview with Maria
Nadotti, DeLillo explained
My book (Mao II), in a way, is asking who
is speaking to these people. Is it the writer
who traditionally thought he could inuence
the imagination of his contemporaries or is it
the totalitarian leader, the military man, the
terrorist, those who are twisted by power and
who seem capable of imposing their vision on
the world, reducing the earth to a place of danger and anger. Things have changed a lot in
recent years. One doesn't step onto an airplane
in the same spirit as one did ten years ago: its
all dierent and this change has insinuated itself into our consciousness with the same force
with which it insinuated itself into the visions
of Beckett or Kafka.[61]

sembly lines, television sets, supermarkets, synthetic fabrics, and credit cards.[64] George Will proclaimed the
study of Lee Harvey Oswald in Libra as sandbox existentialism and an act of literary vandalism and bad
citizenship.[64] DeLillo responded I don't take it seriously, but being called a 'bad citizen' is a compliment to a
novelist, at least to my mind. Thats exactly what we ought
to do. We ought to be bad citizens. We ought to, in the
sense that we're writing against what power represents,
and often what government represents, and what the corporation dictates, and what consumer consciousness has
come to mean. In that sense, if we're bad citizens, we're
doing our job.[64] In the same interview DeLillo rejected
Wills claim that DeLillo blames America for Lee Harvey Oswald, countering that he instead blamed America
for George Will. DeLillo also gured prominently in B.
R. Myers's critique of recent American literary ction, A
Readers Manifesto.

5 References in popular culture

5.1 In lm
In The Proposal (2009), the Canadian-born editor in
chief of a New York publisher risks deportation to
meet DeLillo at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

5.2 In music
Band names
The band The Airborne Toxic Event takes its name
from a chemical gas leak of the same name in
DeLillos White Noise.

Many younger English-language authors such as Bret Eas The Too Much Joy spin-o band, Wonderlick, takes
ton Ellis, Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace
its name from an intentional misspelling of the name
have cited DeLillo as an inuence. Literary critic Harold
of the protagonist from Great Jones Street.
Bloom named him as one of the four major American
novelists of his time,[62] along with Thomas Pynchon,
Philip Roth, and Cormac McCarthy, though he questions Lyrics
the classication of DeLillo as a postmodern novelist.
Asked if he approves of this designation, DeLillo has re Rhett Miller references Libra in his song World Insponded: I don't react. But I'd prefer not to be labeled.
side a World, saying: I read it in DeLillo, like he'd
I'm a novelist, period. An American novelist.[63]
written it for me. (The phrase, There is a world inside the world, appears multiple times in DeLillos
Critics of DeLillo argue that his novels are overly stylbook.)
ized and intellectually shallow. Bruce Bawer famously
condemned DeLillos novels insisting they weren't actu Conor Oberst begins his song Gold Mine Gutted
ally novels at all but tracts, designed to batter us, again
with: It was Don DeLillo, whiskey neat, and a
and again, with a single idea: that life in America today
blinking midnight clock.
is boring, benumbing, dehumanized...Its better, DeLillo
seems to say in one novel after another, to be a maraud Too Much Joy's song Sort of Haunted House,
ing murderous maniac and therefore a human than to
from Mutiny, is inspired by DeLillo.
sit still for America as it is, with its air conditioners, as-

6 BIBLIOGRAPHY

5.3

In publications

6.2 Short ction

Paul Auster dedicated his books In the Country of 6.2.1 Collections

Last Things and Leviathan to his friend Don DeLillo.
The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories (2011)
Ryan Boudinot and Neal Pollack[65] contributed
humor pieces to the journal McSweeneys satirizing
DeLillo.
6.2.2 Short stories
A ctionalized DeLillo blogs for The Onion.[66]
A ctionalized version of DeLillo makes a few appearances as a minor character in A.M. Homes
2012 novel May We Be Forgiven.

5.4

In reviews

David Foster Wallace saluted DeLillo and Cynthia

Ozick as two of the greatest living writers of the English language.[67]

Bibliography
This list is incomplete; you can help by
expanding it.

6.1

Novels

Americana (1971)
End Zone (1972)
Great Jones Street (1973)
Ratners 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 Harpers in Oct. 1992)
The Body Artist (2001)
Cosmopolis (2003)
Falling Man (2007)
Point Omega (2010)
Zero K (2016)

DeLillo, Don (Winter 1960). The River Jordan.

Epoch 10 (2): 105120.
"Take the A Train" (1962) (First published in
Epoch 12, No. 1 (Spring 1962) pp. 925.)
Spaghetti and Meatballs (1965) (First published in
Epoch 14, No. 3 (Spring 1965) pp. 244250)
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. 195217.)
"The Uniforms" (1970) (First published in Carolina
Quarterly 22, 1970, pp. 411.)
"In the Mens Room of the Sixteenth Century"
(1971) (First published in Esquire, Dec. 1971, pp.
174177, 243, 246.)
"Total Lost Weekend" (1972) (First published in
Sports Illustrated, Nov. 27, 1972, pp. 98101+)
"Creation" (1979) (First published in Antaeus No.
33, Spring 1979, pp. 3246.)
The Sightings (1979) (First published in Weekend
Magazine (Summer Fiction Issue, out of Toronto),
August 4, 1979, pp. 2630.)
"Human Moments in World War III" (1983) (First
published in Esquire, July 1983, pp. 118126.)
The Ivory Acrobat (1988) (First published in
Granta 25, Autumn 1988, pp. 199212.)
The Runner (1988) (First published in Harpers,
Sept. 1988, pp. 6163.)
Pafko at the Wall (1992) (First published in
Harpers, Oct. 1992, pp. 3570.)
The Angel Esmeralda (1995) (First published in
Esquire, May 1994, pp. 100109.)
Baader-Meinhof (2002) (First published in The
New Yorker, 1 April 2002, pp. 7882.)
Still Life (2007) (First published in The New
Yorker, April 9, 2007)
Midnight in Dostoevsky (2009) (First Published
in The New Yorker, November 30, 2009)

9
The Border of Fallen Bodies (2009) (First Published in Esquire, April 21, 2009)
"Hammer and Sickle" (2010) (First published in
Harpers, Dec. 2010, pp. 6374)
Sine Cosine Tangent (2016) (First published in
The New Yorker, February 22, 2016)
Plexiglass (2016) (First published in Harpers,
Apr. 2016, pp. 8386.)

6.3

Plays

The Engineer of Moonlight (1979)

The Day Room (rst production 1986)

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 Jurys 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 ve numbered sections, and
is about ve pages long.)
In the Ruins of the Future (Dec 2001) (This short
essay appeared in Harpers Magazine. It concerns
the September 11 incidents, terrorism, and America
and comprises eight numbered sections.)[68]
DeLillo, Don (Autumn 2009). Remembrance.
Granta (108): 6869. Nelson Algren

Valparaiso (rst production 1999)

Love-Lies-Bleeding (rst production 2005)
The Word for Snow (rst production in 2007)

6.4

Screenplays

Game 6 (2005), 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 1990s, but wasn't produced until 2005,
ironically one year after the Red Sox won their rst
World Series title in 86 years. To date, it is DeLillos
only work for lm.

6.5

Essays and reporting

American Blood: A Journey through the Labyrinth

of Dallas and JFK (1983) (Published in Rolling
Stone, Dec. 8, 1983. DeLillos rst major published
essay. Seen as signposting his interest in the JFK
assassination that would ultimately lead to Libra)

7 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 (Fiction) for White
Noise[25]
1985 National Book Critics Circle Award nalist
(Fiction, 1985) for White Noise
1988 National Book Critics Circle Award nalist
(Fiction, 1988) for Libra
1988 New York Times Best Books of the Year
(1988) for Libra
1988 National Book Award nalist (Fiction) for
Libra[28]
1989 Irish Times, Aer Lingus International Fiction
Prize for Libra
1992 PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II

Salman Rushdie Defense (1994) (Co-written with

Paul Auster in defense of Salman Rushdie, following
the announcement of a fatwa upon Rushdie after the
publication of The Satanic Verses)

1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination for Mao

II

The Artist Naked in a Cage (1997)(A short piece

ran in The New Yorker on May 26, 1997, pages 67.
An address delivered on May 13, 1997 at the New
York Public Library's event Stand In for Wei Jingsheng.)

1997 National Book Award nalist (Fiction) for

Underworld[31]

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)

1995 Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award

1997 National Book Critics Circle Award nalist

(Fiction, 1997) for Underworld
1997 New York Times Best Books of the Year
nominee for Underworld
1998 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination for
Underworld

10
1998 American Book Award for Underworld
1999 Jerusalem Prize
1999 IMPAC Award shortlist for Underworld
2000 William Dean Howells Medal awarded for
Underworld
2000 "Riccardo Bacchelli" International Award
for Underworld
2001 James Tait Black Memorial Prize shortlist
(Fiction, 2001) for The Body Artist
2003 IMPAC Award longlist for The Body Artist

8 FURTHER READING

8 Further reading
Adelman, Gary, Sorrows Rigging: The Novels
of Cormac McCarthy, Don Delillo, and Robert
Stone,McGill-Queens University Press, 2012.
Bloom, Harold (ed.), Don DeLillo (Blooms 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.

2006 New York Times: Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years (Runner-Up) for
Underworld

Cowart, David, Don DeLillo The Physics of Language, University of Georgia Press, 2002.

2007 New York Times Notable Book of the Year

(Fiction and Poetry) for Falling Man

Dewey, Joseph, Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo, University of South Carolina
Press, 2006.

2007 Booklist Top of the List: A Best of Editors

Choice for Falling Man
2007 Nominee for Man Booker International Prize
2009 Common Wealth Award of Distinguished
Service for achievements in literature
2009 IMPAC Award longlist for Falling Man
2010 St. Louis Literary Award
2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in
American Fiction[69]
2011 New York Times 100 Notable Books of
2011 list for The Angel Esmeralda
2012 The Story Prize nalist for The Angel Esmeralda
2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction nalist for
The Angel Esmeralda
2012 Frank OConnor International Short Story
Award longlist for The Angel Esmeralda
2012 Carl Sandburg Literary Award
2012 IMPAC Award longlist for Point Omega
2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction[2][48][70]
2014 - Norman Mailer Prize for Lifetime Achievement[71]
2015 - National Book Awards Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters

Dewey, Joseph (ed.), Kellman, Steven G. (ed.),

Malin, Irving (ed.), Underwords: Perspectives on
Don DeLillos Underworld, University of Delaware
Press, 2002.
Duvall, John, Don DeLillos Underworld: A
Readers Guide, Continuum International Publishing
Group, 2002.
Duvall, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Don DeLillo, Cambridge UP, 2008.
Ebbeson, Jerey, Postmodernism and its Others:
The Fiction of Ishmael Reed, Kathy Acker, and Don
DeLillo (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory),
Routledge, 2010.
Engles, Tim (ed.), Duvall, John (ed.), Approaches to
Teaching DeLillos White Noise, Modern Language
Association Press, 2006.
Giaimo, Paul, Appreciating Don DeLillo: The
Moral Force of A Writers Work, Praeger Publishers Inc, 2011.
Halldorson, Stephanie, The Hero in Contemporary
American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow and
Don DeLillo, 2007.
Hantke, Steen, 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.

11
Laist, Randy, Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillos 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.
Olster, Stacy (ed.), Don DeLillo: Mao II, Underworld, Falling Man (Continuum Studies in Contemporary North America Fiction), Continuum, 2011.
Orr, Leonard, White Noise: A Readers Guide Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003.
Osteen, Mark American Magic and Dread: Don
DeLillos Dialogue with Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.

9 References
[1] The Pulitzer Prizes | Fiction. Pulitzer.org. Retrieved
2013-11-23.
[2] Prize for American Fiction Awarded to Don DeLillo.
Library of Congress. 2013-04-25. Retrieved 2013-1123.
[3] Kevin Nance (2012-10-12). Don DeLillo talks about
writing - Page 3. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-1123.
[4] Panic interview with DeLillo - 2005. Perival.com. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[5] Vince Passaro (1991-05-19). Dangerous Don DeLillo.
The New York Times.
[6] Amend, Christoph; Diez, Georg (October 11, 2007).
Dum Pendebat Filius: Translation of Ich kenne
Amerika nicht mehr (I don't know America anymore)".
Die Zeit. Retrieved December 30, 2011.
[7] Dancing to the music of time. The Australian. 201003-06. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
[8] DeLillo Interview by Peter Henning,
Perival.com. Retrieved December 30, 2011.

2003.

[9] Kevin Nance (2012-10-12). Don DeLillo talks about

writing - Page 2. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-1123.
[10]

Ruppersburg, Hugh (ed.), Engles, Tim (ed.), Critical

Essays on Don DeLillo, G.K. Hall, 2000.

[11] Ron Charles (2013-04-25). Don DeLillo is rst recipient

of Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The
Washington Post. Retrieved 2013-11-23.

Schneck,
Peter
&
Schweighauser,Philipp
(eds.),Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don Delillo,
Continuum, 2010.

[12] Ed Caesar (2010-02-21). Don DeLillo: A writer like no

other. The Sunday Times (London). Retrieved 2010-0820.

Schuster, Marc, Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard,

and the Consumer Conundrum, Cambria Press,
2008.
Sozalan, Azden, The American Nightmare: Don
DeLillos Falling Man and Cormac McCarthys The
Road, Authorhouse Publishing, 2011.
Taylor, Mark C, Rewiring the Real: In Conversation with William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark
Danielewski, and Don DeLillo (Religion, Culture and
Public Life), Columbia University Press, 2013.
Veggian, Henry, Understanding Don DeLillo, University of South Carolina Press, 2014.
Weinstein, Arnold, Nobodys Home: Speech, Self,
and Place in American Fiction From Hawthorne to
DeLillo, Oxford University Press, 1993.

[13] Intensity of a Plot: Mark Binelli interviews Don

DeLillo. Guernica. July 2007. Retrieved December 30,
2011.
[14] Passaro, Vince (1991-05-19). Dangerous Don DeLillo.
New York Times.
[15] Interviewed by Adam Begley (Fall 1993). Don DeLillo,
The Art of Fiction No. 135: Interviewed by Adam Begley. The Paris Review. Retrieved December 30, 2011.
[16] mean streak - artforum.com / scene & herd. Artforum.com. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[17] Alter, Alexandra (2010-01-29). Don DeLillo on His
New Book 'Point Omega' - WSJ.com. Online.wsj.com.
Retrieved 2010-03-16.
[18] D. T. Max. Letter from Austin: Final Destination. The
New Yorker. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[19] Published May 7, 2007 (2007-05-07). Our Guide to
the Don DeLillo Oeuvre New York Magazine. Nymag.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.

12

[20] Harris, Robert R. (October 10, 1982). A Talk with Don

DeLillo. The New York Times.
[21] Players - Don DeLillo - 1977. Perival.com. 2012-1218. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[22] Running Dog - Don DeLillo - 1978. Perival.com. 201001-30. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[23] Rayner, Richard (2010-01-03). Tuning back in to 'White
Noise'". latimes.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
[24] Leclair, Thomas; Delillo, Don (Winter 1982). An
Interview with Don DeLillo: Conducted by Thomas
LeClair. Contemporary Literature 23 (1): 1931.
doi:10.2307/1208140. JSTOR 1208140.
[25] National Book Awards 1985. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
(With essays by Courtney Eldridge, Matthew Pitt, and Jess
Walter from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
[26] Alter, Alexandra (2010-01-30). Don DeLillo on Point
Omega and His Writing Methods - WSJ.com. Online.wsj.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
[27] White Noise - Don DeLillo - 1985. Perival.com. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[28] National Book Awards 1988. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
[29] DeLillo Detractors. Perival.com. Retrieved 2010-0316.
[30] Amis, Martin (1997-10-05).
War. The New York Times.

Survivors of the Cold

[31] National Book Awards 1997. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
[32] Mark O'Connell (2012-09-09). The Angel Esmeralda:
Nine Stories by Don DeLillo review. London: The
Observer. Retrieved 2013-11-23.

REFERENCES

[40] Henderson, Jane (August 24, 2010). DeLillo to receive

STL Literary Award. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved
December 30, 2011.
[41] Books: The Angel Esmeralda. Simon & Schuster. Retrieved December 30, 2011.
[42] The Story Prize. The Story Prize. Retrieved 2013-1123.
[43] Archived December 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
[44] The Frank O'Connor.
Frankoconnor-shortstoryaward.net. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[45] Schillinger, Liesl (November 17, 2011). Don DeLillo
and the Varieties of American Unease. The New York
Times.
[46] Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner. Chicago Public
Library Foundation. 2013-10-23. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[47] John Hopewell (2013-01-29). Cronenberg, DeLillo,
Branco reteam for Body Art". Variety (magazine). Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[48] Charles, Ron (2013-04-25). Don DeLillo is rst recipient of Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
The Washington Post. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[49] DeLillo Wins Inaugural Library of Congress Prize for
American Fiction. The Daily Beast. 2013-04-25. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[50] Williams, John (2013-04-25). New Literary Prize Goes
to DeLillo. The New York Times.
[51] Cosmopolis Interviews - Rob Pattinson, David Cronenberg, Don Delillo. Oh No They Didn'tcom. 2012-04-23.
Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[52] Kevin Nance (2012-10-12). Don DeLillo talks about
writing. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
[53] http://books.simonandschuster.com/Zero-K/
Don-DeLillo/9781501135392

[33] Ransom Center Acquires Archive of Noted American

Novelist Don DeLillo. HRC News. 2004-10-20.

[54] http://flavorwire.com/535906/
don-delillo-to-receive-national-book-award-for-contribution-to-american-le

[34] Don DeLillo Events of Interest. Perival.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.

[55] http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters_2015_ddelillo.
html

[35] David Cronenberg journeys to 'Cosmopolis | EW.com.

News-briefs.ew.com. 2009-07-24. Retrieved 2010-0316.
[36] Don DeLillo (2009-01-07). Midnight in Dostoevsky.
The New Yorker. Retrieved 2010-03-16.

[56] http://delilloparisconf.byethost12.com/
[57] John Freeman (2006-03-05). Q&A: Don DeLillo / Its
not as easy as it looks / DeLillo talks about writing plays,
watching sports and movies, and dening love and death.
San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2013-11-23.

[37] PEN American Center Writers Rally for Release of Liu

Xiaobo. Pen.org. 2009-12-31. Retrieved 2010-03-16.

[58] John N. Duvall (29 May 2008). The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo. Cambridge University Press. p. 13.
ISBN 978-1-139-82808-6.

[38] Hales, Dianne R. (2010-02-01). Don DeLillo - The

Barnes & Noble Review. Barnes & Noble. Retrieved
2013-11-23.

[59] Singer, Dale. Take Five: Don't call Don DeLillos ction
'postmodern'". Retrieved 16 July 2014.

[39] Schuessler, Jennifer (2010-02-18). TBR Inside the

List. NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.

[60] DePietro, Thomas (ed.) (2005). Conversations With Don

DeLillo. University Press of Mississippi. p. 128. ISBN
1-57806-704-9.

13

[61] DePietro, Thomas (ed.) (2005). Conversations With Don

DeLillo. University Press of Mississippi. p. 110. ISBN
1-57806-704-9.
[62] Bloom, Harold (2003-09-24). Dumbing down American
readers. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
[63] DePietro, Thomas (ed.) (2005). Conversations With Don
DeLillo. University Press of Mississippi. p. 115. ISBN
1-57806-704-9.
[64] Remnick, David, Exile on Main Street: Don DeLillos
Undisclosed Underworld, The New Yorker, September
15, 1997.
[65] McSweeneys Internet Tendency: DeLillo in the Outback. Mcsweeneys.net. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
[66] Don DeLillo | The Onion Americas Finest News
Source. The Onion. Archived from the original on
February 19, 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
[67] Brief Interview with a Five Draft Man, Amherst Magazine
[68] DeLillo, Don (December 2001). In the Ruins of the Future. Harpers Magazine. pp. 3340.
[69] Cohen, Patricia (September 23, 2010). PEN American
Center Names Award Winners. ArtsBeat (The New York
Times). Retrieved December 30, 2011.
[70] Husna Haq (2013-04-25). Don DeLillo becomes rst
writer to receive the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 201311-23.
[71] http://www.sys-con.com/node/3159143

10

External links

DeLillo 'Featured Authors page at NY Times

DeLillo Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
Literary Encyclopedia Biography
Works by or about Don DeLillo in libraries
(WorldCat catalog)
Don DeLillos America website focused on Don
DeLillos work since 1996
Don DeLillo Bibliography listing all work by
DeLillo, including interviews, proles, blurbs and
other miscellaneous DeLillo writings
Jacobs, Timothy. Don DeLillo. Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Peter Knight. Oxford: ABC-CLIO Press, 2003. 219
220.
Don DeLillo interview with Granta Magazine
Bookworm Interviews (Audio) with Michael Silverblatt: January 1998, June 2003, June 2003

14

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11.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Don DeLillo Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo?oldid=722524138 Contributors: Mav, Ortolan88, R Lowry, KF, Sophea,
K.lee, Zanimum, Frieda, Tpbradbury, Topbanana, Hajor, Bearcat, Moncrief, LGagnon, Hippietrail, Profoss, BenFrantzDale, Zigger, Henry
Flower, Varlaam, Jdavidb, Ragib, Studio1991, Gyrofrog, Gadum, Tothebarricades.tk, D6, CanisRufus, FrankTownend, Gilgamesh he,
Cacophony, Infocidal, Flxmghvgvk, Rray, Atlant, Philip Cross, Calton, VladimirKorablin, SidP, AFox2, GabrielF, Stemonitis, Angr,
Woohookitty, Bjones, RHaworth, Lkjhgfdsa, NuclearFunk, Jleon, SDC, Stefanomione, Palica, RichardWeiss, Rjwilmsi, Koavf, Peripatetic,
RE, Brighterorange, Gadig, Leithp, FlaBot, Cjosefy, VKokielov, Semi-awesome, Sillstaw, YurikBot, RobotE, Samuel Wiki, Piet Delport,
Maw, Sylvain1972, Irishguy, Anetode, Tony1, Jessek, Pegship, Doktor Waterhouse, MrBook, Cassandraleo, SmackBot, Classiclms, Karlotta, S3plan, Hmains, Kurykh, Sadads, Colonies Chris, Writtenright, JesseRafe, Phaedriel, MrRadioGuy, John wesley, Gabo79, Kristenq,
Tesseran, Lambiam, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, Bzfgt, Nareek, Gobonobo, Dspitzle, Danielsilliman, Kyoko, Christian Roess, MikeWazowski,
Gualtieri, AshcroftIleum, Keever1102, Ghetto Gothic, Wooyi, ShelfSkewed, Icarus of old, Cydebot, Aristophanes68, Grammargeek, MPerpall, JamesLucas, Theblueline, Robertbo, Inoculatedcities, PKT, Mephistophilis, Headbomb, Z10x, Farrtj, Graham Fortier, WordUp,
Modernist, Zigzig20s, WWB, Dsp13, Boguslinks, Rothorpe, Promking, Magioladitis, P64, QuizzicalBee, Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, Spywriter, Froid, Corporal Tunnel, Indon, Sesesq, Grunge6910, Johnpacklambert, Sintauro, JayJasper, Doug4, Tajoll, Billinghurst, Wctplonk,
Captain Cusack, Sfredsox09, Alcmaeonid, NBCC1, SieBot, VanceHalldorson, CutOTies, Lightmouse, Kumioko (renamed), ImageRemovalBot, ClueBot, Masamafo, Mc2000, All Hallows Wraith, Rodhullandemu, Thousandrobots, Jeanenawhitney, Excirial, Rimbaud
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Redactor33, Socerizard, Bysmuth, LuK3, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Worldbruce, AnomieBOT, EARM, Citation bot, Roferbia, XIIIfromTOKYO,
Sunwin1960, Web20librarian, Heslopian, The Interior, Green Cardamom, Nebraska8101, Keith Talent 1987, ApacheSqdNick, Haaqfun, Mahnut, , DomBrdrk, FoxBot, Wolfehhgg, Thisispain, Plusdrama33, RjwilmsiBot, Ripchip Bot, BillyPreset, GoingBatty,
QuentinUK, , VWBot, Ebrambot, H3llBot, Accotink2, Tki.n, ChuispastonBot, Stephette, Will Beback Auto, ClueBot NG,
Georgepauljohnringo, Robcouteau, Perival, Delaywaves, Sinistersnowman, Helpful Pixie Bot, BritishMeridian, Jaceksoci68, Tdimhcs, Oulipal, Amelia.esguerra, Jgeiser22, Jhonevans, Jmscripsi, Carlstak, Charleskinamon, ChelSEAmars, Garlaine.luc, Chelsee dickson, Sammgale,
Chrisdlny, MJHeernan11, BattyBot, Anthrophilos, Ted Hodgkinson, Giupt, Cyberbot II, ChrisGualtieri, Cenbatoe, Khazar2, VIAFbot,
Choor monster, Epicgenius, Ruby Murray, Jodosma, Dollarlikemoney, Bradley J. Fest, Subhanjan Konwer, Oxford Shorter, KasparBot,
Quackriot, Am1996g and Anonymous: 224

11.2

Images

File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Don_delillo_nyc_02.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Don_delillo_nyc_02.jpg License: CC BYSA 2.0 Contributors: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thousandrobots/5371974016/in/photostream/ Original artist: Thousand Robots
Thousandrobots (talk).
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