AJ darling

AJ darling

Abbott Joseph Liebling (born October 18, 1904 in New York ; † December 28, 1963 there) was an American journalist who was closely associated with The New Yorker magazine from 1935 until his death .

biography

Favorite grew up in a wealthy family on the Upper East Side in Manhattan on. His father Joseph Epstein, a Jewish immigrant, worked in the fur industry there, his mother Anna Sloan originally came from Austria . After finishing school early in New York, Liebling was accepted into Dartmouth College in the fall of 1920 . However, he left Dartmouth without a degree and enrolled in the journalism school at Columbia University . After graduating there, he began his career as a journalist with the Evening Bulletin in Providence , Rhode Island . He worked briefly in the sports department of the New York Times , but was dismissed for a referee in the game results list due to the designation "Ignoto" ("unknown" in Italian).

In 1926, Favorit's father asked his son if he was ready to give up his career as a journalist and study in Paris for a year . Liebling then sailed to Europe in the summer of 1926, where he studied French medieval literature at the Sorbonne . Although he only spent a little over a year in Paris, this experience shaped him and led to a lifelong love for France and the French, which could also be seen in his later war reports . In the fall of 1927 he returned to Providence to write for the Journal. He then moved to New York, where he applied for a job at Joseph Pulitzer's New York World , known for his publications by James M. Cain and Walter Lippmann and known as the writer's newspaper of the time. To get the editor's attention, James W. Barrett, Liebling hired a retired Norwegian seaman to go three days outside the Pulitzer building with Hire Joe Liebling billboards [source: The New Yorker, March 29, 2004, p.54] - and marched off. (It turned out, however, that Barrett always used a different entrance and thus never saw the sign.) Liebling wrote for the World (1930–31) and for the World Telegram (1931–35). In 1934 he married Mary Anne Quinn without knowing about her schizophrenia. Mary Anne was hospitalized many times during her marriage.

In 1935, Liebling started at The New Yorker . His best articles from the late 1930s are collected in Back Where I Came From (1938) and Telephone Booth Indian (1942).

War reporter

During World War II , Liebling was a war correspondent and wrote many stories from North Africa , England and France. “His war” began when he flew to Europe in October 1939 to report on the first fighting. He was in Paris until June 10, 1940 and, after a short stay in the USA, flew to Great Britain in 1941. In November 1942 he traveled to Algeria to report on the fighting on the Tunisian front (January to May 1943). The articles from that period were collected and published in The Road back to Paris . He was at D-Day , the Allied landing in Normandy , and wrote a memorable article about his experience on a landing craft there. He then spent two months in Normandy and Brittany and was there when the Allies retook Paris. Liebling received the cross of the Légion d'honneur for his war reports .

post war period

After the end of the war, Liebling returned to the New Yorker , where he wrote his monthly contribution "Wayward Press" for many years, in which he analyzed the US press. Since Liebling was also an avid fan of boxing, horse racing and food, he wrote about these topics at times. In 1947 he published The Wayward Pressman , a collection of his writings from the New Yorker and other publications. During the late 1940s he strongly criticized the Un-American Activities Committee , befriended Alger Hiss , divorced his wife, and married Lucille Spectorsky in 1949, from whom he later divorced to marry the author Jean Stafford in 1959 .

In 1961 Liebling published The Earl of Louisiana , previously published as a series of articles in The New Yorker , in which he discussed the trials of Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long, the younger brother of Louisiana politician Huey Pierce Long .

Liebling died on December 28, 1963 and was buried in the Green River Cemetery in East Hampton , New York.

Works

• Between the courses: an American in the restaurants of Paris Translated from the English, foreword and explanations by Joachim Kalka. Berenberg Verlag, Berlin 2007 ISBN 978-3-937834-21-4
• The road back to Paris , Joseph, London 1944
• The good art: Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and the classic era of the American boxing match , Nachw. By Joachim Kalka; Note by Joachim Kalka; from d. Engl. Transl. by Joachim Kalka, Berenberg Verlag, Berlin 2009 ISBN 978-3-937834-32-0

Web links

• Literature by and about AJ Liebling in the catalog of the German National Library