Photo: Tribeca Disruptive Innovation / CC BY-SA 3.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)

Michiko Kakutani

ミチコ・カクタニ　/　みちこ・かくたに

American literary critic

January 9, 1955 (age 71)　・　New Haven, Connecticut, United States

From Connecticut
Journalist
Literary critic

My Take

For decades Kakutani was the single most powerful voice in American book criticism, and a rave or a pan from her could genuinely make or break a literary career. I love how fearless she was, taking on giants like Norman Mailer and Jonathan Franzen without flinching. Her prose was sharp, allusive, and occasionally divisive, but never lazy. The mystique of her near-total absence from public life only added to the legend; she was a byline more than a person. Whether or not you agreed with her verdicts, she made reading reviews feel like high-stakes drama. A true institution of the Times.

Overview

Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955, in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American literary critic and author. A Yale University graduate, she served as the chief book critic for The New York Times from 1983 to 2017 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Daughter of the mathematician Shizuo Kakutani, she became one of the most influential and feared book reviewers in the United States.

1. Profile

Name (English): Michiko Kakutani
Name (Japanese): ミチコ・カクタニ
Reading: みちこ・かくたに
Born: January 9, 1955 (age 71)
Zodiac / Chinese zodiac: Capricorn / Goat
Origin: New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Blood type: Private
Height: Private
Agency: Private
Occupation: Journalist / Literary critic

2. Background

Elementary school: Private
Junior high: Private
High school: Private
University: Yale University

3. Relationships

Spouse: Private
Children: Private
Parents: Private
Siblings: Private

4. Personality

Motto

Private

6. Links

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