Of Donald Finkel’s fourteen books, two have been nominated for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, another was a finalist for the National Book Award, and his most recent received the Dictionary of Literary Biography’s 1994 Year book Award. A Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, he taught for thirty-one years at Washington University in St. Louis and served as a visiting professor at Bennington College and Princeton University. He is now retired and lives in St. Louis.