John Leonard: 1939-2008

Legendary culture critic John Leonard passed away last Wednesday after a battle with lung cancer. He was 69.

Leonard was a novelist and literary pundit, but you might see him described as a different type of critic depending on the obituary. At the time of his death, he reviewed television for New York magazine, but he rose to the top of the critical totem pole during the '70s as the editor of The New York Times Book Review. He was a columnist for Harper's Magazine, literary editor of The Nation, a media critic for "CBS Sunday Morning," NPR contributor, culture critic at the Times, and he freelanced for publications ranging from The New York Review of Books to TV Guide.

He was known for discovering and championing the work of several notable writers during their early days, including Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez. Many credit Leonard for launching the latter's career in America. "You emerge from this marvelous novel as if from a dream, the mind on fire." So began his review of the classic Márquez novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, in 1970.

In 2006, Leonard received a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle. During his acceptance speech, he talked about the authors he'd spent his life judging. "From these writers, for almost 50 years, I have received narrative, witness, companionship, sanctuary, shock and steely strangeness." He concluded with the sum (literally) of his life's work: "At an average of five books a week, not counting all those sighed at and nibbled on before they go to the Strand, I will read 13,000. Then I’m dead. Thirteen thousand in a lifetime."

Related links:
New York Magazine: John Leonard Archive
The New York Review of Books: John Leonard Archive
The New York Times: John Leonard, 69, Cultural Critic, Dies 

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