Leland de la Durantaye, Ph.D.
Department
Areas of Expertise
Biography
Leland de la Durantaye (born 1972) is a writer, critic, translator and professor of comparative literature. He has taught at the École Normale Supérieure and Harvard University and is currently Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College.
He has been a Fulbright fellow, a Woodrow Wilson fellow, a DAAD fellow, a Mellon fellow, a fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, and a fellow of the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. De la Durantaye is the author of three books and over eighty articles on topics in philosophy, French literature, German literature, Italian literature, anglophone literature and the visual arts.
His translation of Jacques Jouet’s Upstaged was a finalist for the PEN Best Translated Book of 2012.
His nonfiction books are Style is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov (2007), Giorgio Agamben: A Critical Introduction (2009), and Beckett’s Art of Mismaking (2016).
His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Village Voice, The London Review of Books, Bookforum, Artforum, The Believer, and other newspapers and magazines.
He serves on the editorial boards of the Harvard Review and Cabinet.
His first novel, Hannah versus the Tree, was published by McSweeney's in November 2018.
Email: [email protected]
Education
B.A. Michigan State University, School of Arts and Sciences; M.A. Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences; Ph.D. Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences
Awards and Affiliations
Finalist for PEN Best Translated Book of 2011 for "Upstaged" by Jacques Jouet. 2012
Finalist for "Three Percent" Best Translated Book of 2011 for "Upstaged" by Jacques Jouet. 2012
Berlin Prize. Holtzbrinck Fellow. The American Academy in Berlin. 2011-2012
Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the Center for Human Values, Princeton University. 2008-2009
Research and Publications
- https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/bringing-myth-surface
- https://lithub.com/how-do-we-write-about-evil/
- https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-brief-interview-with-leland-de-la-durantaye-author-of-hannah-versus-the-tree
- https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/leland-de-la-durantaye-hannah-versus-the-tree
- https://kboo.fm/media/70244-hannah-versus-tree-leland-de-la-durantaye
Beckett's Art of Mismaking. Harvard University Press, 2016.
Giorgio Agamben: A Critical Introduction. Stanford University Press, 2009.
Style is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov. Cornell University Press, 2007.
"Whose Voices Are These?" [Review essay of Rachel Cusk's Parade. Los Angeles Review of Books. April 6, 2025.
“Who Whips Whom.” [Review essay of D.A.F. de Sade Justine et autres romans. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade] The London Review of Books. February 19, 2015. 35-37.
“To Be and To Do. On Giorgio Agamben’s L’uso dei corpi. Homo sacer, IV, 2.” The Boston Review. January-February 2016.
“Taking Refuge in the Loo.” [Review essay on recent works by Peter Handke] The London Review of Books. Volume 36, Number 10, May 2014. 33-34.
“Sedan Chairs and Turtles.” [Review essay on Walter Benjamin’s Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Age of Advanced Capitalism”] The London Review of Books. Volume 35, Number 22. November 21, 2013.
“Do the Right Thing: Calvino’s Letters.” [Review of Italo Calvino’s Letters: 1940-1985.] The Boston Review. September/October 2013. Vol. 38, no. 5. 53-59
“Rough Old World: Tom Drury’s Pacific.” The Los Angeles Review of Books. September 2013.