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Andrew Solomon (born October 30, 1963) is an American writer on politics, culture and psychology. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Travel and Leisure, and other publications on a range of subjects, including depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libyan politics, and deaf culture.

Solomon's book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the 2001 National Book Award, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and was included in The Times list of one hundred best books of the decade. Honors awarded to Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity include the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Media for a Just Society Award of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Wellcome Book Prize.

Solomon is a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center, adjunct professor of clinical psychology at Weill Cornell Medicine, a lecturer at Yale School of Medicine, and a past president of PEN American Center.

Early life and education

Family

Solomon's paternal grandfather, who was Jewish, emigrated from Dorohoi, Romania, to the United States in 1900. Solomon is the oldest son of Carolyn Bower Solomon and Howard Solomon, former chairman of Forest Laboratories and founder of Hildred Capital Partners; he is brother to David Solomon, also of Hildred Capital Partners. Solomon described the experience of his family's presence at his mother's planned suicide at the end of a long battle with ovarian cancer in an article for The New Yorker; in a fictionalized account in his novel, A Stone Boat; and again in The Noonday Demon. Solomon's subsequent depression, eventually managed with psychotherapy and antidepressant medications, inspired his father to secure FDA approval to market citalopram (Celexa) in the United States.

Education

Solomon was born and raised in Manhattan. He attended the Horace Mann School, graduating cum laude in 1981. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1985, graduating magna cum laude, and later earned a master's degree in English at Jesus College, Cambridge. In August 2013, he was awarded a Ph.D. in psychology from Cambridge, with a thesis on attachment theory prepared under the supervision of Juliet Mitchell.

Publications and career

In 1988, Solomon began his study of Russian artists, which culminated with the publication of The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (Knopf, 1991). His first novel, A Stone Boat (Faber, 1994), the story of a man's shifting identity as he watches his mother battle cancer, was a runner up for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction prize.

From 1993 to 2001, Solomon was a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression was originally published in May 2001, and has been translated into twenty-four languages. It was named a Notable Book of 2001 by The New York Times, and was included in the American Library Association's 2002 list of Notable Books. It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction; the Books for a Better Life Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society; the 2002 Ken Book Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City; Mind Book of the Year; the Lambda Literary Award for Autobiography/Memoir; and Quality Paperback Book Club's New Visions Award.

Following publication of The Noonday Demon, Solomon was honored with the Dr Albert J. Solnit Memorial Award from Fellowship Place; the Voice of Mental Health Award from the Jed Foundation and the National Mental Health Association (now Mental Health America); the Prism Award from the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association; the Erasing the Stigma Leadership Award from Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services; the Charles T. Rubey L.O.S.S. Award from the Karla Smith Foundation; and the Silvano Arieti Award from the William Alanson White Institute.

In 2003, Solomon's article, "The Amazing Life of Laura", a profile of diarist Laura Rothenberg, received the Clarion Award for Health Care Journalism, and the Angel of Awareness Award from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. In April 2009, his article, "Cancer & Creativity: One Chef's True Story," received the Bert Greene Award for Food Journalism by the International Association of Culinary Professionals; the story was also a finalist for the 11th Annual Henry R. Luce Award. Solomon's reminiscence on a friend who committed suicide won the Folio Eddie Gold Award in 2011.

In addition to his magazine work, Solomon has written essays for many anthologies and books of criticism, and his work has been featured on National Public Radio's Moth Radio Hour.

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity is about how families accommodate children with physical, mental and social disabilities and differences; it was published in November 2012 in the United States and two months later in the UK (under the title, Far from the Tree: A Dozen Kinds of Love). The writing of the book was supported by residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center; at MacDowell, Solomon was the DeWitt Wallace/Reader's Digest Fellow and later the Stanford Calderwood fellow. The book was named one of the 10 best books of 2012 and one of the 100 best books of the 21st century by The New York Times. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the Nonfiction category, the Media for a Just Society Award of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Books for a Better Life Award, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Wellcome Book Prize, and the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) Book of the Year Award for Nonfiction. A young adult edition of Far from the Tree was published in July 2017.