John Burnham Schwartz (born 1965) is an American novelist and screenwriter. Schwartz is best known for his novels Reservation Road (1998) and The Commoner (2008). His fifth novel, Northwest Corner, a sequel to Reservation Road, was published in 2011.[1] He is an editor at large at Penguin Random House.[2]
Career
John Burnham Schwartz was born in 1965, in New York City, the son of Alan U. Schwartz, an entertainment attorney, and Paula Schwartz (née Dunaway), an editor and writer.[3] Schwartz's parents later apparently divorced; in 1983 his mother married the poet W. S. Merwin, and was known as Paula Merwin.[4][5]
Growing up in New York City, Schwartz attended the Manhattan Country School.[6] He later attended Harvard College, where he majored in Japanese studies.[6] After graduating in 1987, with a B.A. in East Asian Studies,[3][7] he initially accepted a position with a Wall Street investment bank, before finally turning the position down, after selling his first novel.[4][6] That book, Bicycle Days, a coming of age story about a young American man in Japan, was published in 1989 on his 24th birthday, and garnered strong reviews.[4][7] In 1991 he was a recipient of a Lyndhurst Foundation Award.[3]
Schwartz went on to publish Claire Marvel (2002), a love story set in the United States and France,[10][11] and, in 2008, The Commoner, a novel inspired by the life of Empress Michiko of Japan, the current empress and crown princess of Japan, and the first commoner to marry into the Japanese imperial family.[4]
