William McPherson (March 16, 1933 – March 28, 2017) was an American writer and journalist. He is the author of two novels, Testing the Current and To the Sargasso Sea, and many articles, essays, and book reviews. McPherson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism in 1977.[1]
In 1958, McPherson began his professional career as a copy boy for the Washington Post, becoming a staff writer a few months later. He remained at the Post until 1966, when he became a senior editor at William Morrow & Company in New York. Three years later, at the behest of Ben Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post, McPherson returned to the Post, first as daily book editor and then, when the Sunday Book World came under the sole ownership of the Washington Post, as Book World's first editor, a post he held from 1972 to 1978. He later moved to the editorial page where he wrote a weekly op-ed column, selected the letters to the editor, and was a member of the editorial board.[2] Before and after leaving the Post in 1987, he worked as a freelance writer and journalist, taught writing and criticism at American University in Washington, D.C., and lectured at various colleges and universities in the United States and abroad, including Columbia University, the University of Oklahoma, and the Radcliffe Publishing Course.[3]
McPherson's first novel, Testing the Current, was published in 1984 to wide acclaim. Russell Banks wrote in the New York Times Book Review, "William McPherson's first novel is an extraordinarily intelligent, powerful and, I believe, permanent contribution to the literature of family, childhood and memory."[4]The New York Times named Testing the Current one of 1984's "Notable Books of the Year".[5] McPherson's second novel, To the Sargasso Sea, explores the adult life of the first novel's child protagonist.[6]New York Review Books Classics republished Testing the Current in January 2013.[7]
.jpg)
.png){kind=small}
