Birkerts is a modern master of the literary essay. In his award-winning books—The Electric Life: Essays on Twentieth Century Literature, American Energies: Essays on Fiction, and The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age—he uses this forgotten form to work through critical literary theory, defending the written word in prose. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1994, he is a lecturer at Emerson College in Boston and a Boston Review contributing editor.
