Nathan, Leonard, 1924-2007

Leonard Nathan (1924-2007) was an award-winning American poet, essayist, teacher, and critic.

Born in El Monte, California, he served in the United States Army as a combat engineer in World War II and afterwards attended the University of California Berkely (UCB) on the GI Bill. While at UCB he met his future wife, Carol, and George Hochfield, who became a lifelong friend and colleague. Nathan received his BA (1950) and Master's (1952) in English (1950), followed by a PhD (1961). Shortly thereafter he took a position with UCB's Speech Department, becoming associate professor in 1965 and full professor in 1968. He served as chair of the department from 1968-1972, overseeing the department's changeover to become the Department of Rhetoric. He retired from teaching in 1991 but continued to write, and at the time of his death was engaged in a joint project with Hochfield, a translation of the work of Italian poet Umberto Saba.

Nathan's work was published in national magazines and journals, among them the New Yorker, Prairie Schooner, the Kenyon Review, and the Atlantic ; he also published several collections of his poetry. His prose work included Diary of a Left-handed Birdwatcher, and he collaborated on several translations of other poets' works.

Among his honors were the National Institute of Arts and Letters prize for poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Phelan Award for Narrative Poetry, and three silver medals from the Commonwealth Club of California, including one for The Potato Eaters (Orchises Press, 1999).

[Portions of this biographical sketch adapted from Nathan's obituary in the UC Berkeley News .]

From the guide to the Leonard Nathan Papers, 1961-2007, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)