Askold Melnyczuk (born December 12, 1954) is an American writer whose publications include novels, essays, poems, memoir, and translations.
In 1975, the family, who sheltered a number Jewish friends during the war, were designated "righteous among gentiles" and invited to plant a tree at Yad Vashem in Israel.
Melnyczuk graduated from Cranford High School,[1] where a twelfth grade English teacher underscored the single most important lesson for any writer: the art of revision.
"[2] His second novel, Ambassador of the Dead (2001), selected as one of the "Best Books of the Year" by the Los Angeles Times, was described "a triumph of style and storytelling" by Scott Morris.
[3] House of Widows (2008) is a "big novel…about love, war, duty, honor, betrayal, history, and politics," noted Booklist, the journal of the American Library Association, adding that it was "hard to put down and harder to forget," and naming it an "Editor's Choice" for the year.
Kirkus Reviews noted that the "hallucinatory tale achieves something of the fierce, distracting power of D.H. Lawrence's nerve-grating masterpiece, Women in Love.
"[4] Author Jill McCorkle said that Melnyczuk's fourth novel, Excerpt from Smedley's Secret Guide to World Literature, "charms the reader and steals the heart" while critic George Scialabba noted that "Jonathan Wainwright is the lambent essence of today's adolescence."