10 Facts About Ben Lerner

Benjamin S Lerner was born on February 4,1979 and is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic.

Ben Lerner has been a Fulbright Scholar, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Howard Foundation Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a MacArthur Fellow, among other honors.

Ben Lerner was born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, which figures in each of his books of poetry.

Ben Lerner is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School, where he participated in debate and forensics, winning the 1997 National Forensic League National Tournament in International Extemporaneous Speaking.

Ben Lerner was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of 52 sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures.

In 2003 Ben Lerner traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain, where he wrote his second book of poetry, Angle of Yaw, which was published in 2006.

Ben Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, published in 2011, won the Believer Book Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for first fiction and the New York Public Library's Young Lions prize.

In 2008 Ben Lerner began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British scholarly publication.

Ben Lerner has taught at California College of the Arts and the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.

In 2016 Ben Lerner became a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.