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Brian Evenson (born August 12, 1966) is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson. His fiction is often described as literary minimalism, but also draws inspiration from horror, weird fiction, detective fiction, science fiction and continental philosophy. Evenson makes frequent use of dark humor and often features characters struggling with the limits and consequences of knowledge. He has also written non-fiction, and translated several books by French-language writers into English.
Since 2016 he has taught in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts, both in the Creative Writing MFA program and in the Aesthetics and Politics MA Program.
Brian Evenson was born August 12, 1966 in Ames, Iowa. His father, William Evenson, was a longtime professor of physics at Brigham Young University (BYU) and later an administrator at the same school. As a young man, Brian Evenson served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in France and Switzerland.
He received degrees from BYU (BA) and the University of Washington (MA and PhD). After leaving a teaching position at BYU, he held positions at Oklahoma State University, Syracuse University, and the University of Denver before being hired at Brown University. He was Professor of Literary Arts at Brown from 2003 to 2015.
BYU controversy
While teaching at BYU, Evenson was involved in a controversy surrounding his first book Altmann's Tongue (1994). While a new professor of creative writing at Brigham Young University (BYU), Brian Evenson published Altmann's Tongue, which included scenes of violence such as characters who are forced to eat mutilated tongues and who attempt to cut off their own limbs. Evenson stated that his book contract was a "significant factor" in his being hired, and he included some stories from the collection in his application. A graduate student complained anonymously to church leaders that the work promoted the "enjoyment" of violence, while Evenson argued that his fiction accentuated violence to show its horror and "thus allow it to be condemned." A senior faculty member planned to tell church authorities that Evenson knew that future, similar publications would "bring repercussions," even though Evenson had not said this.Evenson resigned from BYU in 1995, and left the church formally in 2000. His case, along with others, was included in a report by the American Association of University Professors, which argued that academic freedom was stifled at BYU.
Brian Evenson is the author of more than a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection A Collapse of Horses (Coffee House Press, 2015) and the critical book Ed Vs. Yummy Fur: Or What Happens When a Serial Comic Becomes a Graphic Novel (Uncivilized, 2014). His collection Windeye (2012) and the novel Immobility (2012) were both finalists for the Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the 2009 ALA-RUSA Award). His novel The Open Curtain (2004) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, Manuela Draeger, David B., and others. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Slovenian.
Writing style and influences
Evenson's Ph.D is in both literature and critical theory, and his work is subtly philosophical, particularly influenced by continental philosophy. Many of Evenson's recurrent themes of virtuality and "sensation" being traceable to Deleuze & Guattari's Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Altmann's Tongue opened with an epigraph by Julia Kristeva; Dark Property featured quotes in untranslated German from Martin Heidegger; and several of Evenson's books have epigraphs from philosopher Alphonso Lingis. However, Evenson has stated that he intends any philosophical elements to be fully integrated into his fiction rather than promoting any particular viewpoint, and has argued that reading philosophical works directly is more rewarding than reading philosophy that is veiled as fiction.
Some of Evenson's work explores his Mormon heritage, often from a critical perspective or examining controversial subject matter. For example, the main character of The Open Curtain (2006) becomes preoccupied with a murder committed in the early 1900s by William Hooper Young, a grandson of 19th-century Mormon leader Brigham Young, while Immobility (2012) takes place in a post-apocalyptic Utah and features some esoteric elements of LDS theology. Nonetheless, Evenson has asserted that he maintains a measure of respect for devout believers in the LDS Church and does not intend to casually offend or provoke them.
Evenson's work has been compared to that of J. G. Ballard, Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Bowles, Franz Kafka, William S. Burroughs, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Coover and Edgar Allan Poe (among others). Evenson has expressed admiration for horror novelist Peter Straub, and for crime fiction in the hardboiled genre, both past masters like Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson, and contemporary practitioners like Andrew Vachss.
Brian Evenson Interviewed by Rob Goyanes
After being introduced to Brian Evenson’s work by poet Katy Mongeau, I quickly consumed several of his books, though it felt like they, rather, had consumed me: First, The Open Curtain, in which a teenage boy finds himself entangled with a newly discovered half-brother and the century-old murder case involving the grandson of Brigham Young; and then, Last Days, about an amputee cult who captures an unwitting messiah. Evenson’s latest story collection, Song for the Unraveling of the World (Coffee House Press), contains twenty-two short stories of unexplained abduction, otherworldly murder, and monsterish things that slip in and out of skins.
Not quite horror, not quite science fiction, these stories exist somewhere else, somewhere more elliptical. Though compressed and concise, resolutely un-purple, Evenson’s language still bubbles with unnerving effects, like inscrutable ingredients in a soup you’re about to be force-fed. A willful excommunicant of the Mormon church, Evenson has written dozens of books and won many awards. He was chair of Brown University’s Literary Arts program and currently teaches writing and critical studies courses at CalArts. We spoke over the phone, he from his home patio in California.
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