Three of This Year’s MacArthur Geniuses Are Literary

FishbowlNY already has an interview with Alex Ross, the classical music critic for the New Yorker and the author of The Rest Is Noise, about being named one of this year’s 25 recipients of a $500,000 fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (the so-called “genius grant”):

“I don’t plan to make drastic changes. I’m very happily employed at The New Yorker; they will have to carry me out on a stretcher or in a straitjacket, whichever comes first. When I get around to writing my next big book, this award will allow me to take some time off here and there, travel to do research, and otherwise explore the subject in depth. I wrote my last book in coffeeshops between assignments, in the middle of the night when other work was done, and whenever else I could squeeze in the time. The MacArthur will give my a lot more breathing room.”

Among the other winners: novelist Chimamanda Adichie and medical historian Nancy Siraisi.

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