Age, Biography and Wiki

Michiko Kakutani was born on 9 January, 1955 in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., is an American critic, writer (b. 1955). Discover Michiko Kakutani's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is she in this year and how she spends money? Also learn how she earned most of networth at the age of 69 years old?

Popular As N/A
Occupation Critic · author · journalist
Age 69 years old
Zodiac Sign Capricorn
Born 9 January 1955
Birthday 9 January
Birthplace New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality United States

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 9 January. She is a member of famous author with the age 69 years old group.

Michiko Kakutani Height, Weight & Measurements

At 69 years old, Michiko Kakutani height not available right now. We will update Michiko Kakutani's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

Physical Status
Height Not Available
Weight Not Available
Body Measurements Not Available
Eye Color Not Available
Hair Color Not Available

Dating & Relationship status

She is currently single. She is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about She's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, She has no children.

Family
Parents Not Available
Husband Not Available
Sibling Not Available
Children Not Available

Michiko Kakutani Net Worth

Her net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Michiko Kakutani worth at the age of 69 years old? Michiko Kakutani’s income source is mostly from being a successful author. She is from United States. We have estimated Michiko Kakutani's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
House Not Available
Cars Not Available
Source of Income author

Michiko Kakutani Social Network

Instagram Michiko Kakutani Instagram
Linkedin
Twitter Michiko Kakutani Twitter
Facebook
Wikipedia Michiko Kakutani Wikipedia
Imdb

Timeline

1955

Kakutani, a Japanese American, was born on January 9, 1955, in New Haven, Connecticut.

She is the only child of Yale mathematician Shizuo Kakutani and Keiko "Kay" Uchida.

Her father was born in Japan, and her mother was a second-generation Japanese-American who was raised in Berkeley, California.

Kakutani's aunt, Yoshiko Uchida, was an author of children's books.

1976

Kakutani received her bachelor's degree in English literature from Yale University in 1976, where she studied under author and Yale writing professor John Hersey, among others.

1977

Kakutani initially worked as a reporter for The Washington Post, and then from 1977 to 1979 for Time magazine, where Hersey had worked.

1979

In 1979, she joined The New York Times as a reporter.

1983

Michiko Kakutani (ミチコ・カクタニ, 角谷 美智子) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for The New York Times from 1983 to 2017.

Kakutani was a literary critic for The New York Times from 1983 until her retirement in 2017.

She gained particular notoriety for her sometimes-biting reviews of books from famous authors, with Slate remarking that "her name became a verb, and publishers have referred to her negative reviews as 'getting Kakutani'ed'".

1998

In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998.

2006

Many authors who received such reviews gave harsh public responses: in 2006, Kakutani called Jonathan Franzen's The Discomfort Zone "an odious self-portrait of the artist as a young jackass."

Franzen subsequently called Kakutani "the stupidest person in New York City".

2007

On July 19, 2007, The New York Times published a pre-release story written by Kakutani about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

An account of the ensuing controversy, including the critical comments of some Harry Potter fans, can be found on the newspaper's Public Editor's blog.

Kakutani was parodied in the essay "I Am Michiko Kakutani" by one of her former Yale classmates, Colin McEnroe.

2012

In 2012, Kakutani wrote a negative review of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Antifragile.

2017

Kakutani announced that she was stepping down as chief book critic of the Times on July 27, 2017.

In an article summarizing her book reviewing career, a writer in Vanity Fair called her "the most powerful book critic in the English-speaking world" and credited her with boosting the careers of George Saunders, Mary Karr, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, and Zadie Smith.

2018

In 2018, Taleb stated in his book Skin in the Game that "someone has to have read the book to notice that a reviewer is full of baloney, so in the absence of skin in the game, reviewers such as Michiko Kakutani" can "go on forever without anyone knowing" that they are fabricating and drunk.

According to Kira Cochrane in The Guardian, such counterattacks may have bolstered Kakutani's reputation as commendably "fearless."

She has been known to write reviews in the voice of movie or book characters, including Brian Griffin, Austin Powers, Holden Caulfield, Elle Woods of Legally Blonde, and Truman Capote's character Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

In 2018, Kakutani published a book criticizing the Trump administration titled The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump.

In it, Kakutani draws parallels between postmodern philosophy and the number of false or misleading statements made by Trump.

In an interview for the book, she argued:

"With its suspicion of grand, overarching narratives, postmodernism emphasized the role that perspective plays in shaping our readings of texts and events [...] and it opened the once-narrow gates of history to heretofore marginalized points of view. But as such, ideas seeped into popular culture and merged with the narcissism of the 'Me Decade' [and] also led to a more reductive form of relativism that allowed people to insist that their opinions were just as valid as objective truths verified by scientific evidence or serious investigative reporting'."

2020

Kakutani's second book, Ex-Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Re-Read, an essay collection about books that she considers personally and culturally influential, was published in 2020.

In 2024, Kakutani published her third book, The Great Wave: The Era of Radical Disruption and the Rise of the Outsider.

Kakutani is a fan of the New York Yankees.

, she lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

During her career at The New York Times, Kakutani developed a reputation as an extremely private person who was seldom seen in public, with articles describing her as "mysterious" and "reclusive".

Shawn McCreesh, writing in New York magazine, said that "you were likelier to have seen a snow leopard in Manhattan than to meet Kakutani in the wild".

However, upon the publication of The Death of Truth, Kakutani began giving interviews to print outlets, though she declined to appear on television.