As one of the most distinguished contemporary American writers, Michael Chabon (1963–) has rejuvenated the form of the novel by privileging story and character—the nuts and bolts of classic realist fiction—while simultaneously playing genre games with postmodern exuberance. At the end of
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, an evangelist American government official says to a Jewish detective, “we aren’t telling a story… the story is telling us” (365). The trajectory of Chabon’s life and work thus far exposes the power that stories have over us even as it challenges predetermined limits on genre, gender, and Jewish identity.
Columbia, Maryland, Chabon’s boyhood home, stimulated his imagination and penchant for creating alternative worlds. An experiment in interracial
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Citation: Meyers, Helene. "Michael Chabon". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5959, accessed 21 November 2024.]
