Granta Names John Freeman American Editor

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By Matt Haber

December 8, 2008 | 5:33 p.m

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via guardian.co.uk

Lynn Andriani of Publisher's Weekly—which is on some kind of roll today—is reporting that critic John Freeman has been named American editor of Granta, the English literary journal.

As luck would have earlier this month, PW's Craig Morgan Teicher profiled Mr. Freeman, the former president of the National Book Critics Circle, and he told the reporter that the job of being a critic is "to be a public reader." He continued:

'Reading's a private, intimate experience. But to know what it feels like to read a book you haven't read, you need to have someone write to you about it, which is what a critic does: explain what it feels like to spend a few hours inside a book.'

Mr. Freeman's work has appeared in The Dallas Morning News, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The New York Times, The Guardian,and on NPR.

Media Mob would've emailed Mr. Freeman for a comment, but his bio tells us that he's "currently finishing a book on the tyranny of e-mail, for Scribner," so we figured we'd leave him alone.