Frederik Byrn Kohlert – författare

Chicago occupies a central position in both the geography and literary history of the United States. From its founding in 1833 through to its modern incarnation, the city has served as both a thoroughfare for the nation''s goods and a crossroads for its cultural energies. The idea of Chicago as a crossroads of modern America is what guides this literary history, which traces how writers have responded to a rapidly changing urban environment and labored to make sense of its place in - and implications for - the larger whole. In writing that engages with the world''s first skyscrapers and elevated railroads, extreme economic and racial inequality, a growing middle class, ethnic and multiethnic neighborhoods, the Great Migration of African Americans, and the city''s contemporary incarnation as a cosmopolitan urban center, Chicago has been home to a diverse literature that has both captured and guided the themes of modern America.

Chicago occupies a central position in both the geography and literary history of the United States. From its founding in 1833 through to its modern incarnation, the city has served as both a thoroughfare for the nation''s goods and a crossroads for its cultural energies. The idea of Chicago as a crossroads of modern America is what guides this literary history, which traces how writers have responded to a rapidly changing urban environment and labored to make sense of its place in - and implications for - the larger whole. In writing that engages with the world''s first skyscrapers and elevated railroads, extreme economic and racial inequality, a growing middle class, ethnic and multiethnic neighborhoods, the Great Migration of African Americans, and the city''s contemporary incarnation as a cosmopolitan urban center, Chicago has been home to a diverse literature that has both captured and guided the themes of modern America.

Best known for his alternative comics, Chester Brown (b. 1960) is one of the most acclaimed and influential cartoonists of the last half century. This first biography provides a critical account of Brown’s life and career, highlighting his role in the evolving comics landscape and tracing his journey from self-publishing minicomics on the streets of Toronto to creating award-winning graphic novels. Characterized by often minimalist art and unconventional themes, comics such as Yummy Fur, Ed the Happy Clown, I Never Liked You, Louis Riel, and Paying for It have consistently pushed boundaries and confronted taboos. Chester Brown offers unique insight into Brown’s creative process as well the scope of his work and its larger cultural contexts. Organized chronologically, the book provides a full account of the artist’s career, beginning with his failed attempts to break into superhero comics and ending with discussions of his most recent work, in which he blends autobiography with political views on sex work and religion. The book also examines Brown’s extensive authorial revisions and considers how he has deployed both these and an increasingly voluminous amount of paratextual material in the service of creating a highly distinctive authorial persona that in turn cannot help but influence how we encounter and read his work. Chester Brown pulls back the curtain on this pioneering artist and emphasizes the inseparability of Brown’s art and life, including the myriad ways they have informed each other across the last four decades of comics history.