Emile Capouya (1925–2005) was an American essayist, critic, and publisher.
Born in Manhattan, New York City, Capouya grew up in the Bronx and worked at his high school’s literary magazine with classmates that included novelist James Baldwin. After graduation, he joined the merchant marine, returning home after World War II to attend Columbia University while he worked part-time as a stevedore on New York’s docks.
Capouya launched his publishing career at New Directions in New York, where he published works by Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Tennessee Williams, and Jean-Paul Sartre. He then worked as literary editor for The Nation 1969–81, and published left-leaning political articles and reviews for The New American ReviewThe New York Times, and The Saturday Review. In 1986, Capouya and his wife Keitha founded New Amsterdam Books, a publisher of literary fiction.
Capouya’s collection of semiautobiographical stories In the Sparrow Hills (1993) recounts his experience as a young merchant marine officer in the Pacific during World War II. He also produced the novella The Rising of the Moon (2003.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Emile Capouya
A high-school teacher, after all, is a person deputized by the rest of us to explain to the young what sort of world they are living in, and to defend, if possible, the part their elders are playing in it.
—Emile Capouya
Topics: Teachers
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