Eliot Weinberger (born 6 February 1949) is a contemporary American writer, essayist, editor, and translator. His work regularly appears in translation and has been published in some thirty languages. Collections of his essays have most recently appeared in Russia, Albania, Flemish Belgium, Spain and Germany.
Eliot Weinberger first gained recognition for his translations of the Nobel Prize winning writer and poet Octavio Paz. His many translations of the work of Paz include the Collected Poems 1957-1987, In Light of India, and Sunstone. Among Weinberger's other translations are Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges' Seven Nights. His edition of Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
Today, Weinberger is primarily known for his literary writings (essays) and political articles, the former characterized by their experimental style, verging on a kind of documentary prose poetry, and the latter highly critical of American politics and foreign policy, particularly during the Bush administration.
Weinberger's books of literary writings include Works on Paper, Outside Stories, Written Reaction, Karmic Traces, The Stars, Muhammad, the "serial essay" An Elemental Thing, which was selected by the Village Voice as one of the "20 Best Books of the Year," and, in 2009, Oranges & Peanuts for Sale.
His political articles are collected in 9/12, What I Heard About Iraq, and What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award for criticism and selected for the Times Literary Supplement’s "International Books of the Year." The Guardian (UK) said of What I Heard About Iraq: "Every war has its classic antiwar book, and here is Iraq’s." It has been adapted into a prize-winning theater piece, two cantatas, two prize-winning radio plays, a dance performance, and various art installations; it has appeared on some 100,000 websites, and was read or performed in nearly one hundred events throughout the world on 20 March 2006, the anniversary of the invasion.
A co-author of a study of Chinese poetry translation, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Weinberger is the translator of Unlock by the exiled poet Bei Dao, and the editor of The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry, also a TLS "International Book of the Year." He is the editor of the anthologies Innovators & Outsiders and World Beat: International Poetry Now from New Directions.
In 1992, Weinberger was the first recipient of the PEN/Kolovakos Award for his promotion of Hispanic literature in the U.S.; in 2000, he became the only American literary writer to be awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle by the government of Mexico. He is prominently featured in the Visitor’s Key to Iceland, and was chosen by the German organization Dropping Knowledge as one of a hundred "world’s most innovative thinkers." At the 2005 PEN World Voices Festival, he was presented as a "post-national writer." He lives in New York City.
