David Hajdu
Spring 2003
Course: The Art of Nonfiction Literature
Links:
- Hajdu describes process of developing artful nonfiction, without creating ‘Moreau monster’
- Historical richness, aesthetic power of Billy Strayhorn’s jazz coming to life at University
David Hajdu writes a monthly column for The New Republic on music and popular culture. He is a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and Vanity Fair. Mr. Hajdu was the general editor of Entertainment Weekly from 1990 to 1999, editor-at-large for the New York Times Magazine Group from 1985 to 1990, and the editor-in-chief at Video Review from 1980 to 1985.
Mr. Hajdu is the author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, published in 1996 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina, published in 2001 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Both of his books were named finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Lush Life won the ASCAP/ Deems Taylor Award, and is being adapted for a feature film. Additionally, Mr. Hajdu has been published in the anthologies: O.K. You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors and Best Music Writing 2000.
Mr. Hajdu has taught writing classes at the Columbia University’s School of Journalism, New School University, New York University, Rutgers University, and Tufts University. He is a graduate of New York University (B.A.).
