Nathanael West

Gina Wisker (University of Brighton)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 17 Oct 1903
Died 22 Dec 1940
Activity 1923-1940

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Cultural Identities

Jewish American

Activities

Primary

Film/TV Script-writer/ Screenwriter
Novelist
Satirist

Resources

West's Works

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His books should, I think, be classified as Cautionary Tales, parables about a Kingdom of Hell whose ruler is not so much the Father of Lies as the Father of Wishes. Shakespeare gives a glimpse of this hell in Hamlet, and Dostoievsky has a lengthy description in Notes from the Underground. ...West's descriptions of Inferno have the authenticity of first-hand experience: he has certainly been there, and the reader has the uncomfortable feeling that his was not a short visit. (W. H. Auden:

The Dyer's Hand

Born Nathaniel von Wallenstein Weinstein the author later changed his name to Nathanael West because, he told his friend the poet William Carlos Williams, “Horace Greeley said, “Go West, young man”, so I did”. Born on 17 October 1903 in New York City of Jewish immigrant

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2251 words

Citation: Wisker, Gina. "Nathanael West". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4670, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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