Berkley Center

James Wood has been a staff writer and literary critic at The New Yorker since 2007. He is also a visiting Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University. He previously was the chief literary critic at the Guardian from 1992 to 1995 and a senior editor at The New Republic from 1995 to 2007. Wood is the author of three essay collections: The Fun Stuff and Other Essays (2012), The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and The Novel (2004), and The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief (1999). He has also written a novel, The Book Against God (2003), and a work of criticism, How Fiction Works (2008). He won a National Magazine Award in 2008 for his criticism in The New Yorker. Wood earned his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University.