Paul Zweig (July 14, 1935 – August 29, 1984) was an American poet, memoirist, and critic known for his study on Walt Whitman.[1][2]
Paul Zweig | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1935-07-14)July 14, 1935 Brooklyn, New York |
| Died | August 29, 1984(1984-08-29) (aged 49) Paris, France |
| Education | Columbia University (BA) University of Paris (PhD) |
| Occupation | Critic, poet, professor |
| Employer | Queens College, City University of New York |
Zweig was born in Brooklyn on July 14, 1935 and was raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Brighton Beach. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School,[3] entered Columbia University to study engineering but switched to literature after taking a class with Lionel Trilling. He received his B.A. from Columbia in 1956 and M.A. in 1958.[4] He lived in France and studied at the University of Paris, earning his PhD in comparative literature before returning to the United States in 1966.[3]
Zweig taught at Columbia and Queens College and served as chair of its department of comparative literature in alternate years.[1] He also reviewed works of poetry, criticism, and fiction for the The New York Review of Books.[1]
Zweig received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976 and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography in 1984 for his study on Walt Whitman.[5][6] He was posthumously named a Finalist of Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990.[7]
In 1984, Zweig died of lymphatic cancer at age 49 in the American Hospital of Paris.[2]