Jonathan Galassi (born 1949 in Seattle, Washington)[1] has served as the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and is currently the Chairman and Executive Editor.

Jonathan Galassi
Jonathan Galassi speaking at the Grand Ballroom of the New Yorker Hotel, 2011
Born1949
Seattle, Washington
Alma materHarvard College
Christ's College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)Chairman and Executive Editor Farrar, Straus and Giroux
EmployerFarrar, Straus and Giroux
SpouseSusan Grace (divorced)

Early life edit

Galassi was born in Seattle (his father worked as an attorney for the Justice Department), but he grew up in Plympton, Massachusetts.[2] He attended Phillips Exeter Academy, where he became interested in poetry, writing and literature.[3] He attended Harvard College, where he studied English with instructors including Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, and served as an editor of the Harvard Lampoon and the president of the Harvard Advocate.[2] He graduated in 1971, then became a Marshall Scholar at Christ's College, Cambridge. He realized while attending Christ’s College that he wanted a career in book publishing.[2]

Career edit

Galassi began his publishing career as an editorial intern at Houghton Mifflin in Boston in 1973.[4] He moved to Random House in New York, and then in 1986 to Farrar, Straus & Giroux (FSG), after being fired from Random House.[4] Two years later, he was named editor-in-chief, and served as the president and publisher at FSG until 2018.[2][3] He was succeeded as Publisher by Mitzi Angel in 2018, and Angel was named President in 2021. Galassi is currently the Chairman and Executive Editor.[5]

Galassi is also a translator of poetry and a poet himself. He has translated and published the poetic works of the Italian poets Giacomo Leopardi and Eugenio Montale.[3] His honors as a poet include a 1989 Guggenheim Fellowship,[6] and his activities include having been poetry editor for The Paris Review for ten years, and being an honorary chairman of the Academy of American Poets.[7] He has published poems in literary journals and magazines including Threepenny Review,[8] The New Yorker, The Nation and the Poetry Foundation website.

He is also a trustee at his alma mater Exeter.[3]

Personal life edit

Galassi lives in Brooklyn. He was married to Susan Grace, with whom he has two daughters.[3] The couple divorced in late 2011.[2] He is gay.[9]

Bibliography edit

Poetry edit

Collections edit

  • Morning Run: Poems (Paris Review Editions/British American Pub., 1988)
  • North Street: Poems (HarperCollins Publishers, 2000)
  • Galassi, Jonathan (2012). Left-handed : poems. New York: Knopf. ISBN 9780307957085.

Translations edit

  • The Second Life of Art: Selected Essays of Eugenio Montale (Ecco Press, 1982)
  • Otherwise: Last and First Poems of Eugenio Montale (Vintage Books, 1984)
  • Collected poems, 1920-1954: Eugenio Montale (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998)
  • A Boy Named Giotto by Paolo Guarnieri (pictures by Bimba Landmann; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999)
  • Selected Poems of Eugenio Montale (translated by Jonathan Galassi, Charles Wright, and David Young; edited with an introduction by David Young; Oberlin College Press, 2004)
  • Canti by Giacomo Leopardi (translated and annotated by Jonathan Galassi; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010)

List of poems edit

Title Year First published Reprinted/collected
Orient epithalamion 2017 Galassi, Jonathan (January 2, 2017). "Orient epithalamion". The New Yorker. Vol. 92, no. 43. pp. 40–41.

Novels edit

  • Muse (Knopf, 2015)[10]
  • School Days: a Novel (Other Press, 2022)

Sources edit

References edit

  1. ^ New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University > Biographies and Photos > Jonathan Galassi Archived 2009-11-21 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b c d e Profile: Harvard Magazine > Editor Extraordinaire Jonathan Galassi on the Risky Art of Publishing Books
  3. ^ a b c d e Mcgrath, Charles (2012-01-27). "For Jonathan Galassi, Unveiling the Heart in Poems". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  4. ^ a b Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara (2015-03-05). "Publishing Legend Jonathan Galassi Makes His Debut as a Novelist". New York Observer. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  5. ^ Harris, Elizabeth A. (25 October 2021). "2 FSG Promotes Mitzi Angel to President". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  6. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation > Fellows Archived 2011-06-22 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ "Jonathan Galassi". Poetry Foundation. 2017-04-10. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  8. ^ "Threepenny: Issue 80, Winter 2000". www.threepennyreview.com. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  9. ^ "Crossing Over". www.out.com. 2012-04-03. Retrieved 2021-09-29.
  10. ^ Wagner, Erica (2015-06-16). "Jonathan Galassi's 'Muse'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-11.

External links edit