John Radanovich

I studied French and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, and am a graduate of the New York University creative writing program. Even though I studied with well-known American fiction writers there, my favorite graduate class at NYU was taught in the French department by the late French novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, who regularly led a course called “Le Nouveau Roman.” Instead of covering all of the Nouveau Roman writers, Robbe-Grillet taught only his own works and spoke of “Robbe-Grillet” throughout the class in the third person. None of the graduate students, nervous in the presence of such a living giant of French culture, dared crack a smile throughout the semester. I was the only student who asked questions he seemed to enjoy; then he dropped the discussion of his own books, and he wanted most of all to talk about the works of Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, and Paul Auster.

I have since written for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and covered the New York music scene for the Bergen Record newspaper. At The Record I profiled and interviewed every living Cuban musician I could, and many other jazz and latin jazz figures..

I have written about Latin music, jazz, and world music for Offbeat and DownBeat. My translations have appeared in Exquisite Corpse and Pequod.