Author Profile: Brian Evenson is an American academic and writer of popular fiction and literary fiction, a novelist and professor.
Name: Brian Evenson
Timeline:
2016 – A Collapse of Horses
2006 – The Open Curtain
2009 – Last Days
2010 – Dead Space: Martyr
2019 – Song for the Unraveling of the World
Background: Brian Evenson was born on 12th August 1966 in Ames, Iowa, United States. His Pen name is B.K. Evenson. He is 53 years old. Ant Zen is his record label. He completed his BA education at Brigham Young University and MA and PhD. at the University of Washington.
He also worked at the University of Denver, Syracuse University and Oklahoma State University, before Brown University hired him. From 2003 to 2015, Brian has worked as Professor of Literary Arts at Brown. Brian Evenson has taught in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts, both in the Aesthetics and Politics MA Program and in the Creative Writing MFA program.
His father worked at the BYU – Brigham Young University as a long time Physics professor. Later on he too worked as administrator in the same school.
Brian has performed duties for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church in Switzerland and France, when he was a young man.
Genre: Brian Evenson’s genres are Literary fiction and Popular fiction.
Literary Contributions: Brian Evenson is winner of the PEN/O. Henry Award, the Reading List award for horror and Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts US & Canada. Brian Evenson has written non-fiction as well and translated a number of books of the French language writers into English. His popular album is Altmann’s Tongue.
Unique Stylistic Features: Brian Evenson’s fiction work is mostly described as literary minimalism, however it also draws inspiration from detective fiction, horror, science fiction, weird fiction as well as continental philosophy. Dark humour is used very often by Brian Evenson in his work which often presents characters struggling with consequences and limits of knowledge. Some of his popular fiction is being published under B.K. Evenson.
Brian’s Mormon heritage is explored in his work mostly from examining controversial subject matter or critical perspective. In The Open Curtain (2006) the main character becomes engrossed in a murder committed in the early 1900s. The murder is committed by a grandson named William Hooper Young of a 19th century Mormon leader named Brigham Young. Immobility (2012) features a few LDS theology esoteric elements and takes place in a post-apocalyptic Utah.
Brian Evenson’s work has been compared to that of Paul Bowles, J.G. Ballard, Franz Kafka and many others.