the William Alanson White Institute : Andrew Soloman Biography

Andrew Solomon Named Honorary Board Member of William Alanson White Institute

NEW YORK, NY—Andrew Solomon, internationally acclaimed author of the The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression , has accepted the position of Honorary Member of the Board of Trustees at The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in Manhattan.

Mr. Solomon, who studied at Yale University and then at Jesus College Cambridge (where he was graduated first in the English faculty), is now pursuing a Ph.D. at Cambridge in Social and Political Studies. In 1988, he began his study of Russian artists, which culminated with the publication of The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (Knopf, 1991). He was asked in 1993 to consult with members of the National Security Council on Russian affairs; that year he was also named a Contributing Writer of The New York Times Magazine. His recently reissued first novel, A Stone Boat (Faber, 1994), was a runner-up for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction prize and was on the Village Voice bestseller list.

Mr. Solomon's most recent book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression , has won him eleven national awards to date, including the 2001 National Book Award, and is being published in 21 languages. It was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It has been on the New York Times bestseller list in both hardback and paperback and has been a bestseller in seven foreign countries. One year after publication, there are 250,000 copies in print in English. Among the honors garnered by The Noonday Demon are the Books for a Better Life Award, the Ken Award of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the QPB New Visions Award, the Voice of Mental Health Award of the Jed Foundation and the National Mental Health Association, the Lammy for the best nonfiction of 2001, the Mind Book of the Year for Great Britain, the Prism Award of the NDMDA, the Charles T. Rubey LOSS award, The William Alanson White Institute Silvano Arieti Award, the Dede Hirsch Community Service Award, and the Erasing The Stigma Leadership Award. It was chosen an American Library Association Notable Book of 2001 and a New York Times Notable Book. The NY Times review described it as “All-encompassing, brave, deeply humane...a book of remarkable depth, breadth and vitality...open-minded, critically informed and poetic all at the same time...fearless, and full of compassion.”

Mr. Solomon has lectured on depression around the world, including recent stints at Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and Brown. He has joined the board of the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign and of the Depression Center of the University of Michigan. Additionally, he serves on the boards of Outward Bound (Hurricane Island School), the Alliance for the Arts, the Alex Fund, the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, the American Council for Cultural Policy, the Worcester Foundation for Medical Research, and the World Monuments Fund, and is on the Conservators' Council of the New York Public Library. He is a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University and is a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Council on Foreign Relations. He maintains residences in London and New York and is a dual national.