Madison Smartt Bell

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| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1957|08|01}}

| birth_place = Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.

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| alma_mater = Princeton University, Hollins University

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| notable_works = All Souls' Rising

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Madison Smartt Bell (born August 1, 1957, Nashville, Tennessee) is an American novelist. While established as a writer by several early novels, he is especially known for his trilogy of novels about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, published 1995–2004.

Early life and education

Raised in Nashville, Bell is a graduate of Princeton University, where he won the Ward Mathis Prize and the Francis LeMoyne Page award, and Hollins University, where he won the Andrew James Purdy fiction award.{{cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/paw/web_exclusives/features/features_25.html|title=Princeton Alumni Weekly: Features Web Exclusives|access-date=January 10, 2016}} He later lived in New York City and London before settling in Baltimore, Maryland.

Career

Bell is a Professor of English at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, where he was Director of the Creative Writing Program from 1998 to 2004.[http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/ Madison Smartt Bell - Portrait d'un Ecrivain], goucher.edu. Accessed March 22, 2024. He taught in various creative writing programs, including the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, and the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.

In addition, he has written essays and reviews for Harper's,{{cite magazine|url=https://harpers.org/author/madisonsmarttbell/|title=Madison Smartt Bell|magazine=Harper's Magazine|access-date=May 23, 2022}} The New York Review of Books,{{cite web|url=http://www.nybooks.com/authors/13793|title=Madison Smartt Bell |work=The New York Review of Books|access-date=January 10, 2016}} and the New York Times Book Review.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/weekinreview/17bell.html|title=Haiti in Ink and Tears: A Literary Sampler|date= January 17, 2010|first=Madison Smartt|last= Bell|work=The New York Times|access-date= January 10, 2016}}

His papers are held at Princeton University{{cite web|url=http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/getEad?eadid=C0771&kw=|title=Madison Smartt Bell Papers (C0771) -- Madison Smartt Bell Papers|access-date= January 10, 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610162355/http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/getEad?eadid=C0771&kw=|archive-date=June 10, 2011}} and at East Carolina University. The latter contains papers related to novels and other writing early in his career, up to 1990.[https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/1169-001 Stuart Wright Collection: Madison Smartt Bell Papers, 1922–1990 (#1169-001)], East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University.

Personal life

Bell is married to poet Elizabeth Spires, who also teaches at Goucher College. They have a daughter, Celia Dovell Bell.{{cite web|title=Seniors to be initiated into Phi Beta Kappa|url=http://www.college.columbia.edu/news/seniors-be-initiated-phi-beta-kappa|publisher=Columbia College|date=April 30, 2013|access-date= May 22, 2013}}

Awards

All Souls' Rising, a novel about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award. It won the 1996 Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race.
He won a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.{{cite web |url=http://www.hollins.edu/newspop/bell.htm |title=News at Hollins |access-date=March 20, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100217045234/http://www.hollins.edu/newspop/bell.htm |archive-date=February 17, 2010 }}

Works

=Fiction=

The Washington Square Ensemble (novel) (Viking Press, 1983)
Waiting For The End Of The World (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1985)
Straight Cut (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1986)
Zero db (short fiction) (Ticknor & Fields, 1987)
The Year Of Silence (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1987)
Soldier's Joy (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1989)
Barking Man (short fiction) (Ticknor & Fields, 1990)
Doctor Sleep (novel) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991)
Save Me, Joe Louis (novel) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993)
All Souls' Rising (novel, Haiti Trilogy, part 1) (Pantheon, 1995)
Ten Indians (novel) (Pantheon, 1996)
Master of the Crossroads (novel, Haiti Trilogy, part 2) (Pantheon, 2000)
Anything Goes (novel) (Pantheon, 2002)
The Stone That the Builder Refused (novel, Haiti Trilogy, part 3) (Pantheon, 2004)
Devil's Dream (novel) (Pantheon, 2009)
The Color of Night (novel) (Vintage, 2011)
Zig Zag Wanderer (short fiction) (Concord Free Press, 2013)
Behind the Moon (novel) (City Lights Publishers, 2017)

=Biography=

Toussaint Louverture: A Biography (Pantheon, 2007)
Child of Light: A Biography of Robert Stone (Doubleday, 2020)

=Other nonfiction=

Narrative Design: A Writer's Guide to Structure (textbook) (W.W. Norton, 1997)
Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form (Norton, 2000)
Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution (Norton, 2005)
Charm City: A Walk Through Baltimore (Crown, 2007)

References

External links

[http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/tu_bell_madison_smartt.html "Bell's 'Stone' caps acclaimed Haiti trilogy"], Albany.edu. Accessed March 22, 2024.
[https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/1169-001 Stuart Wright Collection: Madison Smartt Bell Papers, 1922–1990 (#1169-001), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University]
[https://h-france.net/fffh/maybe-missed/madison-smartt-bells-haitian-revolution-trilogy/ Jeremy D. Popkin, "Madison Smartt Bell's Haitian Revolution Trilogy"], Fiction and Film for Scholars of France, H-France
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286594/ Close Your Eyes], IMDb.com. Accessed March 22, 2024.
{{cite web |title=Madison Smartt Bell |url=http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/ |website=Faculty Web Page |publisher=Goucher College |access-date= May 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981206175852/http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/ |archive-date= December 6, 1998}}

Category:1957 births

Category:20th-century American biographers

Category:20th-century American essayists

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:20th-century American short story writers

Category:21st-century American biographers

Category:21st-century American essayists

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:21st-century American novelists

Category:21st-century American short story writers

Category:American male biographers