Jonathan Safran Foer
Everything has the potential to inspire.
Jonathan Safran Foer has had stories published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Conjunctions. His first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, was published in 2002 and quickly became an international bestseller. A movie based on the book was released by Warner Independent in 2005 and starred Elijah Wood as Jonathan Safran Foer under the direction of Liev Schreiber.
His next novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was published in 2005 and went straight onto national and international bestseller lists. In 2007, he was selected by Granta for their “Best of Young American Novelists II” issue, and in 2010 he was included on The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list of the best young writers in the U.S.
Foer is the editor of an anthology inspired by the bird boxes of Joseph Cornell, A Convergence of Birds, which won the 2007 V&A Illustration Award, and his libretto Seven Attempted Escapes from Silence was performed at the Berlin State Opera House in September 2005.
Eating Animals, a work of nonfiction, was an instant New York Times and international bestseller upon its release in 2009 and is currently under option as a documentary. In 2012, his book The New American Haggadah was a runaway success. He is at work on a novel to be published in 2015.
Why are you participating in the Cultivating Thought series?
We live in a world of fewer bookstores, and fewer libraries, and more and more junk asking for our attention. I couldn’t be happier to be a part of a program that brings thoughtful texts, for free, to people with a few minutes to sit and think.
Tell us about your two-minute read.
I liked the idea of a highly concentrated, intimate thought experiment. Something that could be pondered while eating alone, or discussed while eating with others. The details of our lives — our answers to seemingly esoteric, inconsequential questions — can be so much more revelatory than the Big Facts about us.
Who inspires you? Who are your favorite authors?
Everything has the potential to inspire, but I’ve found music and poetry to be my most trusted sources. One might ask why I’m not a musician or poet. I ask myself this most days.
What’s the best book you've read in the past year?
The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton. It did what all great books do: reminded me of things I didn’t know I knew but had always felt, while also generating new knowledge and feelings.