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 Biographer
and Historian
5th Avenue Theatre,
December 7, 1998
Biography
Excerpt
Selected Works
Links
Biography
Raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey, the son of an art teacher and a dentist,
David Remnick describes a home with "a lot of books around."
From an early age his interests were varied; he commented, "It never
occurred to me that you couldn't like both Walt Whitman and the New York
Knicks. That kind of false dichotomy has always seemed ridiculous to me."
After graduating from Princeton University, Remnick spent ten years as
a staff writer for The Washington Post. During his tenure, he wrote
stories for the Metro, Sports, and Style sections of the paper. His first
piece for the Style section was a graceful and deeply knowledgeable appreciation
of writer Truman Capote.
Remnick's life was deeply affected by his decision to become the Washington
Post's Moscow correspondent in 1988. He accepted the position partly out
of personal interest in his own Russian heritage; both his grandfathers
were born there. Two months after their wedding, Remnick and his wife,
Esther B. Fein, a reporter for The New York Times, moved to Moscow.
Once they arrived, the Soviet Union began to crumble around them. Remnick
spent four years in Russia, writing stories about the collapse of the
Soviet Union as experienced by its peasants as well as its politicians.
His research paid off: His first book, Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days
of the Soviet Empire, won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction
in 1994. Three years later he wrote Resurrection: The Struggle for
a New Russia, in which he describes the squalor of the Yeltsin years.
Known for his narrative journalism, Remnick uses engrossing details and
penetrating interviews to explore the motivation of his subjects. His
vast cultural knowledge and fluency allow him to write well about a wide
range of people. Previously published in The New Yorker, his collection
of essays, The Devil Problem and Other True Stories, portrays a
variety of writers, athletes, and politicians, ranging from Ralph Ellison
to Michael Jordan to Mario Cuomo. Remnick was described by The Washington
Post as "a kind of throwback to the time when reporters all read
Hemingway. He's read deeply not only in the literature, history, economics,
and political science of his own time, but in that of the past as well."
In 1998, Remnick was appointed, with unanimous praise, editor of The
New Yorker.
Excerpt
taken from King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American
Hero (1998)
Ali is an American myth who has come to mean many things to many people:
a symbol of faith, a symbol of conviction and defiance, a symbol of beauty
and skill and courage, a symbol of racial pride, of wit and love. Ali's
physical condition is shocking not least because it is an accelerated
form of what we all fear, the progression of aging, the unpredictability
and danger of life. In Ali we see the frailty even of a man whose job
it was to be the most fearsome figure on the globe. But Ali's illness
is no longer news, no longer quite so shocking, and even though he is
stiff in his movements, even though he barely speaks in public settings,
he can still inspire every person in every room, every arena or stadium
he is in, anywhere he goes. By the time Ali returned from exile and became
champion once more, nearly all of the anger directed at him had dissipated.
Partly, that was because most people could see how sincere he was, even
if they could not accept the Nation of Islam or his reasons for refusing
the draft. He made them laugh. And, after all, the times had changed,
they had changed, or some had. . . .
"Clay was my slave name," he said quietly to me as the afternoon
wore on and he grew more tired. He was beginning one of his oldest riffs.
. . . "Islam was something that was powerful and strong. It was something
I could touch and feel. I grew up and learned that everyone was white.
Jesus Christ was white. Everyone at the Last Supper, white. Now these
Muslims, they come along and question things. And I think I helped. Now
you see a commercial on TV. There's three kids—two black, one white.
Or the other way around. It wasn't like that back then. Things changed.
Things changed. And I helped. Cassius Clay was my grandfather, Cassius
Clay was my father, too. But I changed that. I changed that, too."
While we were watching tapes of the Liston and Patterson fights, I asked
Ali how he'd like to be remembered. He didn't answer. But a long time
ago, when his body still allowed him free speech, Ali answered the same
question:
"I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: as a black man who
won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone
right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him and
who helped as many of his people as he could—financial and also in
their fight for freedom, justice, and equality. As a man who wouldn't
embarrass them. As a man who tried to unite his people through the faith
of Islam that he found when he listened to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
And if all that's asking too much, then I guess I'd settle for being remembered
only as a great boxing champion who became a preacher and a champion of
his people. And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was."
Selected
Works
Lenin's Tomb - The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (1993)
The Devil Problem And Other True Stories (1996)
Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia (1997)
King of the World : Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (1998)
Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker (2000)
Web
Site Links
Interview
with Remnick
Salon.com book review
of King of the World
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