Michael Dirda
American literary critic (born 1948)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Dirda (born 1948) is an American book critic who worked at The Washington Post from 1978 to 2026. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993.
Michael Dirda | |
|---|---|
Dirda in 2009 | |
| Born | 1948 (age 77–78) |
| Education | Oberlin College (BA) Cornell University (MA, PhD) |
| Occupation | Book critic |
Career
Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree in 1970, Dirda earned an M.A. in 1974 and a Ph.D. in 1977 from Cornell University in comparative literature. In 1978 Dirda started writing for the "Book World" section of The Washington Post;[1] in 1993 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his criticism.[2] He was a weekly book columnist for the Post.[3]
In 2002, Dirda was invested as a member of The Baker Street Irregulars.[4]
In 2026, Dirda was laid off by The Washington Post when it reduced its staff by one-third and eliminated the newspaper's books and sports sections.[5][6]
Works
Two collections of Dirda's literary journalism have been published:[7]
- Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) ISBN 0-253-33824-7
- Bound to Please (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005) ISBN 0-393-05757-7
He has also written:
- An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003) ISBN 0-393-05756-9 (autobiography)
- Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2005) ISBN 0-8050-7877-0
- Classics for Pleasure (Orlando: Harcourt, 2007) ISBN 0-15-101251-2
- On Conan Doyle; or, The Whole Art of Storytelling (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011) ISBN 0-691-15135-0
- Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books (New York: Pegasus, 2015) ISBN 978-1-60598-844-3
On Conan Doyle was awarded the 2012 Edgar Award in the Best Critical/Biographical category.[8] (Reviewer Darrell Schweitzer lauds the book in The New York Review of Science Fiction.[9])
Family
Dirda lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife, Marian Peck Dirda, a prints and drawings conservator at the National Gallery of Art. They have three sons: Christopher (b. 1984), Michael (b. 1987), and Nathaniel (b. 1990).[10]
