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{{short description|American author}}
{{Infobox writer
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| honorific_prefix =
| name = Madison Smartt Bell
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| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1957|08|01}}
| birth_place = [[Nashville, Tennessee]], U.S.
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| occupation = Author
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| education = [[Princeton University]], [[Hollins University]]
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| notable_works = ''All Souls' Rising''
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'''Madison Smartt Bell''' (born August 1, 1957, [[Nashville, Tennessee]]) is an American novelist. While established as a writer by several early novels, he is especially known for his trilogy of novels about [[Toussaint Louverture]] and the [[Haitian Revolution]], published 1995–2004.

==Early life and education==
Raised in Nashville, Bell is a graduate of [[Princeton University]], where he won the Ward Mathis Prize and the Francis LeMoyne Page award, and [[Hollins University]], where he won the Andrew James Purdy fiction award.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/paw/web_exclusives/features/features_25.html|title=Princeton Alumni Weekly: Features Web Exclusives|access-date=January 10, 2016}}</ref> He later lived in [[New York City]] and [[London]] before settling in [[Baltimore, Maryland]].

==Career==
Bell is a professor of English at [[Goucher College]] in [[Towson, Maryland]], where he was Director of the Creative Writing Program from 1998 to 2004.<ref>[http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/ Madison Smartt Bell - Portrait d'un Ecrivain], goucher.edu. Accessed March 22, 2024.</ref> He taught in various creative writing programs, including the [[Iowa Writers' Workshop]], the Poetry Center of the [[92nd Street Y]], and the [[Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars]].

In addition, he has written essays and reviews for ''[[Harper's]]'',<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://harpers.org/author/madisonsmarttbell/|title=Madison Smartt Bell|magazine=Harper's Magazine|access-date=May 23, 2022}}</ref> ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nybooks.com/authors/13793|title=Madison Smartt Bell |work=The New York Review of Books|access-date=January 10, 2016}}</ref> and the ''[[New York Times|New York Times Book Review]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/weekinreview/17bell.html|title=Haiti in Ink and Tears: A Literary Sampler|date= January 17, 2010|first=Madison Smartt|last= Bell|work=The New York Times|access-date= January 10, 2016}}</ref>

His papers are held at Princeton University<ref>{{cite web|url=http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/getEad?eadid=C0771&kw=|title=Madison Smartt Bell Papers (C0771) -- Madison Smartt Bell Papers|access-date= January 10, 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610162355/http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/getEad?eadid=C0771&kw=|archive-date=June 10, 2011}}</ref> and at East Carolina University. The latter contains papers related to novels and other writing early in his career, up to 1990.<ref>[https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/1169-001 Stuart Wright Collection: Madison Smartt Bell Papers, 1922–1990 (#1169-001)], East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University.</ref>

==Personal life==
Bell is married to poet [[Elizabeth Spires]], who also teaches at Goucher College. They have a daughter, Celia Dovell Bell.<ref>{{cite web|title=Seniors to be initiated into Phi Beta Kappa|url=http://www.college.columbia.edu/news/seniors-be-initiated-phi-beta-kappa|publisher=Columbia College|date=April 30, 2013|access-date= May 22, 2013}}</ref>

==Awards==
* ''All Souls' Rising'', a novel about [[Toussaint Louverture]] and the [[Haitian Revolution]], was a finalist for the 1995 [[National Book Award]] and the 1996 [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction|PEN/Faulkner Award]]. It won the 1996 [[Anisfield-Wolf Award]] for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race.
* He won a Strauss Living Award from the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hollins.edu/newspop/bell.htm |title=News at Hollins |access-date=March 20, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100217045234/http://www.hollins.edu/newspop/bell.htm |archive-date=February 17, 2010 }}</ref>

==Works==
===Fiction===
*''The Washington Square Ensemble'' (novel) (Viking Press, 1983)
*''Waiting For The End Of The World'' (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1985)
*''Straight Cut'' (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1986)
*''Zero db'' (short fiction) (Ticknor & Fields, 1987)
*''The Year Of Silence'' (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1987)
*''Soldier's Joy'' (novel) (Ticknor & Fields, 1989)
*''Barking Man'' (short fiction) (Ticknor & Fields, 1990)
*''Doctor Sleep'' (novel) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991)
*''Save Me, Joe Louis'' (novel) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993)
*''All Souls' Rising'' (novel, Haiti Trilogy, part 1) (Pantheon, 1995)
*''Ten Indians'' (novel) (Pantheon, 1996)
*''Master of the Crossroads'' (novel, Haiti Trilogy, part 2) (Pantheon, 2000)
*''Anything Goes'' (novel) (Pantheon, 2002)
*''The Stone That the Builder Refused'' (novel, Haiti Trilogy, part 3) (Pantheon, 2004)
* ''Devil's Dream'' (novel) (Pantheon, 2009)
* ''The Color of Night'' (novel) (Vintage, 2011)
* ''Zig Zag Wanderer'' (short fiction) (Concord Free Press, 2013)
* ''Behind the Moon'' (novel) [[City Lights Bookstore|(City Lights Publishers, 2017)]]

===Biography===
*''Toussaint Louverture: A Biography'' (Pantheon, 2007)
*''Child of Light: A Biography of [[Robert Stone (novelist)|Robert Stone]]'' (Doubleday, 2020)

===Other nonfiction===
*''Narrative Design: A Writer's Guide to Structure'' (textbook) (W.W. Norton, 1997)
*''Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form'' (Norton, 2000)
*''Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution'' (Norton, 2005)
* ''Charm City: A Walk Through Baltimore'' (Crown, 2007)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/tu_bell_madison_smartt.html "Bell's 'Stone' caps acclaimed Haiti trilogy"], Albany.edu. Accessed March 22, 2024.
*[https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/1169-001 Stuart Wright Collection: Madison Smartt Bell Papers, 1922–1990 (#1169-001), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University]
*[https://h-france.net/fffh/maybe-missed/madison-smartt-bells-haitian-revolution-trilogy/ Jeremy D. Popkin, "Madison Smartt Bell's Haitian Revolution Trilogy"], Fiction and Film for Scholars of France, H-France
*[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286594/ ''Close Your Eyes''], IMDb.com. Accessed March 22, 2024.
* {{cite web |title=Madison Smartt Bell |url=http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/ |website=Faculty Web Page |publisher=[[Goucher College]] |access-date= May 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981206175852/http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/ |archive-date= December 6, 1998}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Madison Smartt}}
[[Category:1957 births]]
[[Category:20th-century American biographers]]
[[Category:20th-century American essayists]]
[[Category:20th-century American male novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American biographers]]
[[Category:21st-century American essayists]]
[[Category:21st-century American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:American male biographers]]
[[Category:American male essayists]]
[[Category:American male short story writers]]
[[Category:Goucher College faculty and staff]]
[[Category:Hollins University alumni]]
[[Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Novelists from Iowa]]
[[Category:Novelists from Maryland]]
[[Category:Novelists from Tennessee]]
[[Category:PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners]]
[[Category:Writers from Nashville, Tennessee]]
[[Category:Princeton University alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Baltimore]]

Madison Smartt Bell - Revision history

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