Jonathan Safran Foer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Safran Foer in 2008
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| Born | February 21, 1977 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Nickname | JSF |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Education | Princeton University (BA) Mount Sinai Medical Center |
| Notable works | Everything Is Illuminated (2002) |
| Spouse |
Nicole Krauss
(m. 2004; div. 2014) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parents | Esther Safran Foer (mother) |
| Relatives |
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Jonathan Safran Foer (born February 21, 1977) is an American writer. He is well-known for his novels like Everything Is Illuminated (2002), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005), and Here I Am (2016). He also writes non-fiction books, including Eating Animals (2009) and We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast (2019). Jonathan Safran Foer teaches creative writing at New York University.
Contents
Early Life and School
Jonathan Safran Foer was born in Washington, D.C.. His father, Albert Foer, was a lawyer. His mother, Esther Safran Foer, is the child of people who survived the Holocaust. She is now a Senior Advisor at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.
Jonathan is the middle of three brothers in a Jewish family. His older brother, Franklin Foer, was an editor for The New Republic. His younger brother, Joshua Foer, started Atlas Obscura and Sefaria. When Jonathan was 8, he was hurt in a classroom accident. This made him feel unwell for about three years. During this time, he wished he could be "outside his own skin."
He went to Georgetown Day School. In 1994, he traveled to Israel with other Jewish teenagers. In 1995, he started at Princeton University. There, he took a writing class with the famous author Joyce Carol Oates. She saw his talent and told him he had "energy," which is important for a writer. Jonathan later said she was the first person to make him think about writing seriously. He graduated from Princeton in 1999 with a degree in philosophy.
For his final project, he wrote about his grandfather, who survived the Holocaust. This project won a prize for creative writing. After Princeton, he briefly studied medicine but left to focus on writing.
Writing Career
After graduating from Princeton in 1999, Jonathan Safran Foer traveled to Ukraine. His college project later became his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated. This book was published in 2002. It won him a National Jewish Book Award and a Guardian First Book Award. In 2005, the novel was made into a movie starring Elijah Wood.
His second novel, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, came out in 2005. This story is set after the 9/11 attacks. It follows a 9-year-old boy named Oskar Schell as he deals with his father's death. The book uses unique writing styles, including photographs and a flipbook at the end. Critics had different opinions about these techniques. Warner Bros. and Paramount later made this novel into a movie.
In 2005, Jonathan Safran Foer also wrote the words for an opera called Seven Attempted Escapes From Silence. It was performed in Berlin.
In 2008, he started teaching writing at Yale University. In 2021, he began teaching in the creative writing program at New York University. His third novel, Tree of Codes, was published in 2010. In 2012, he edited The New American Haggadah, a book for a Jewish holiday.
In 2009, he published his fourth book, Eating Animals. This book became a New York Times bestseller. It talks about the problems with factory farms and how we choose what to eat. The book explores why people are kind to pets but not to other animals. It suggests that our food choices tell stories about who we are and what we value.
In 2012, he signed a deal for two more books. His novel Here I Am was released in 2016. In 2019, he published We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast. For this book, he discussed eating and climate change with chef Samin Nosrat.
Jonathan Safran Foer is also a board member for Farm Forward. This group works to encourage thoughtful food choices and help animals.
His Views
Jonathan Safran Foer has often spoken out against the meat industry. In 2006, he narrated a documentary called If This is Kosher.... This film looked at the process of certifying food as kosher and supported Jewish vegetarianism.
His non-fiction book, Eating Animals (2009), discusses the ethical issues related to eating meat from large-scale farms. He said he was unsure about eating meat for a long time. The birth of his first child made him feel it was urgent to make decisions about food for his family.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, he repeated his idea that people in America should eat less meat. He believes this is important because of the meat industry's effects on society, the environment, and animal welfare. Jonathan Safran Foer has been a vegetarian sometimes since he was 10 years old.
Personal Life
In June 2004, Jonathan Safran Foer married writer Nicole Krauss. They lived in Brooklyn, New York, and had two sons. They divorced in 2014. From 2015 to 2017, he dated actress Michelle Williams.
Awards and Recognition
- 2000 – Zoetrope: All-Story Fiction Prize
- 2003 – New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award
- 2007 – Included in Granta's Best of Young American Novelists 2
- 2010 – Included in The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list
- 2013 – Appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council
- 2016 – Included in The Forward's Forward 50 list as one of the fifty most influential Jewish-Americans of the year
See also
In Spanish: Jonathan Safran Foer para niños
- List of vegetarians
