George Steiner (1929 – 2020)

1.  Baker, Kenneth (April 12, 1998). "Steiner's Memoir a Sketchy Mix of Reminiscence and Complaint". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
2. ^ "Errata: An Examined Life". University of Chicago Magazine. Retrieved March 27, 2008.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



George Steiner

Steiner speaking at the Nexus Institute, The Netherlands, 2013
Born Francis George Steiner
April 23, 1929
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Died February 3, 2020 (aged 90)
Cambridge, England
Occupation
Author
essayist
literary critic
professor
Nationality French, American
Period 1960–2020
Genre History, literature, literary fiction
Notable works After Babel (1975)
Notable awards Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award (1998)
Spouse
Zara Steiner
​(m. 1955⁠–⁠2020)​ (his death)[1]
Children 2


Francis George Steiner,[2] FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020)[3][4] was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator.[5] He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the impact of the Holocaust.[6] An article in The Guardian described Steiner as a "polyglot and polymath".[7]

Among his admirers, Steiner is ranked "among the great minds in today's literary world".[3] English novelist A. S. Byatt described him as a "late, late, late Renaissance man ... a European metaphysician with an instinct for the driving ideas of our time".[7] Harriet Harvey-Wood, a former literature director of the British Council, described him as a "magnificent lecturer – prophetic and doom-laden [who would] turn up with half a page of scribbled notes, and never refer to them".[7]

Steiner was Professor of English and Comparative Literature in the University of Geneva (1974–94), Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow in the University of Oxford (1994–95), Professor of Poetry in Harvard University (2001–02) and an Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.[2]