The Man Who Rescued Faulkner

"The critic and editor Malcolm Cowley had a record as a literary-talent spotter that was unmatched in the American Century. At The New Republic in 1930, where he'd recently become the literary editor at 32, he published "Expelled," the first short story by a then-teenage John Cheever to appear in a national magazine (one that didn't usually publish fiction). A few years later, Cowley gave a second teenager his start in reviewing: a Brooklyn boy named Alfred Kazin."

"In the 1940s, at the Viking Press, Cowley initiated the resurrection of William Faulkner from oblivion, a project that put the writer on the syllabus in the ever-expanding postwar university, brought the rest of his work back into print, and surely helped win him the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Cowley went on to battle reluctant Viking colleagues to ensure the publication of Jack Kerouac's On the Road in 1957."

Malcolm Cowley identified and promoted emerging literary talent, publishing John Cheever's first national short story and giving Alfred Kazin his start in reviewing. At Viking Press in the 1940s, he revived William Faulkner's reputation, restored his works to print, placed him on university syllabuses, and contributed to Faulkner's recognition leading to the 1949 Nobel Prize. Cowley advocated for Jack Kerouac's On the Road despite publisher resistance and mentored Ken Kesey in a Stanford creative-writing class, influencing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Cowley championed American modernists such as Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway and sought to establish American literature as a distinct, respected tradition.

Read at The Atlantic