The Modern Novel

Biography

Madison Smartt Bell was born in Nashville in 1957. His parents – he was an only child – had dropped out and planned to run a farm in Franklin, near Nashville. The farm motif will occur throughout his writing. He started writing when he was recovering from a collapsed lung in his senior year in high school. He took up writing again while at Princeton, aided by George Garrett. After spending some time in New York in the film and television industry, he went to Hollins College, under George Garrett, to get his MFA. It was there that he started the novel that would become The Washington Square Ensemble. Since then he has published a series of novels, typified by his main characters getting involved in religious or semi-religious philosophies, practicing martial arts, being solitary and involving violence, often in the environment of drug dealing and the like. However, while he was initially hailed as having a great future, in recent years, his production has slowed, with non-fiction being his main output. It is likely that history will remember him as an interesting writer of his time but not one who is likely to make a big impact on the world of literature in the twentieth-first century. He now teaches at Goucher College along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth Spires.

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Madison Smartt Bell
Madison Smartt Bell
Madison Smartt Bell
Madison Smartt Bell
Madison Smartt Bell
Madison Smartt Bell
About Madison Smartt Bell
Haiti in Ink and Tears: A Literary Sampler (article by Bell)
Haiti must call on survival spirit (article by Bell)
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview