Biography
Frederic Tuten grew up in the Bronx. At fifteen, he dropped out of High School to become a painter and live in Paris. He took odd jobs and studied briefly at the Art Students League, and eventually went back to school, continuing on to earn a Ph. D. in early 19th century American Literature from New York University.
He travelled through Latin and South America, studied pre-Columbian and Mexican mural painting at the University of Mexico, wrote about Braziliian Cinema Novo, and joined that circle of film makers, which included Glauber Rocha and Nelson Pereira dos Santos. Tuten finally did live in Paris, where he taught film and literature at the University of Paris 8. He acted in a short film by Alain Resnais, co-wrote the cult film Possession, and conducted summer writing workshops with Paul Bowles in Tangiers.
Tuten's short stories, art and film criticism have appeared in such places as ArtForum, the New York Times, Vogue, Conjunctions, Granta and Harpers. In addition, he has written essays and fictions for artists' catalogues including John Baldessari, Eric Fischl, Pierre Huyghe, Jeff Koons, David Salle and Roy Lichtenstein. He has published five novels: The Adventures of Mao on the Long March; Tallien: A Brief Romance; Tintin in the New World; Van Gogh's Bad Café; The Green Hour; and most recently, Self Portraits: Fictions, a collection of stories.
Tuten received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction and was given the Award for Distinguished Writing from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
For a further biography of Frederic, be sure to read Han's Ulrich Obrist's interview with Frederic on this site.
Tributes to Frederic Tuten
“Frederic Tuten gives courage to many with his mellow, wistful, sad and wise style that turns the improvisations of American inventiveness into the gentle sophistication of a world fast vanishing–with Tuten, one of the few that holds on to the best that has come before and through him, remains.” — Richard Foreman
“Frederic Tuten is one of the great writers of our time. Like with his close friend Roy Lichtenstein, Tuten’s hand and heart are in the text; a unique stamp of freedom of imagination and adventure which burns through the narrative, even when he speaks through Mao or Tintin or other appropriated characters.” — Hans Ulrich Obrist
“Frederic Tuten has always been one of the wonders of our literary community, writing brilliant works while constantly inspiring others, myself most definitely among them. The world of literature is far more habitable because of him and I cannot imagine what an arid and lifeless place it might have been without his shining, fertile, and endlessly invigorating presence. Fortunately, I don’t have to.” — Bradford Morrow
“His canny/uncanny and bloody funny writing slips past the barriers where other writings stop. His books have taken up residence in me. They haunt me and remind me of what it was I really meant when I thought of becoming a writer.” — Jenny Diski
“Frederic Tuten is a national treasure, and a writer’s-writer of the first order.” — Jon Robin Baitz
“The Adventures of Mao on the Long March is an artful montage of lost allusions and an intertextual tour de farce: the French New Wave, Pop Art, Minimalism and Mao Marximalism are playfully twisted and interpreted by the Marx Brothers acting incognito. As an admirer of Frederic Tuten and editor of Las aventuras de Mao en la Larga Marcha, I am glad to join his readers to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of the novel. I’m sure this lively book is just starting its Long March.” — Julián Ríos