Background
Born in Kobe, Japan, to an American father and a Japanese mother, the writers Josh Greenfeld and Fumiko Kometani, Greenfeld grew up in Los Angeles and went to college in New York, graduating from Sarah Lawrence in 1987.
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Karl Greenfeld
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Sarah Lawrence College.
Career
He served as an Assistant Language Teacher on the Joint European Torus Programme in Japan from 1988-1989. A regular contributor to publications such as Gentlemen’s Quarterly, The Atlantic and Vogue, Greenfeld was the managing editor of Tokyo Journal before becoming the editor of Time Asia from 2002–2004 and editor-at-large at Sports Illustrated from 2004-2007. He was the Tokyo correspondent for The Nation.
He is the author of three books about Asia: Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan"s Next Generation and Standard Deviations: Growing Up and Coming Down in the New Asia, and an account of the breakout of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus, China Syndrome: The True Story of the 21st Century"s First Great Epidemic.
In an interview, he said, "My dad was a huge influence in terms of what I think about writing, what has to be in a story, what has to be in a book He"s still a huge influence.
When I wrote something well, he would make me feel really good. When I wrote something bad, he made me feel terrible.
As a kid, it was most of my highs and lows—to the point that if the writing was really good, it almost excused weeks of bad behavior.
In May 2009, Greenfeld published his own memoir of his years with Noah, Boy Alone: A Brother"s Memoir. His novel Triburbia, about a group of families living in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, was published by Harper in July 2012. His novel The Subprimes about a woman who may or may not be the messiah, and the band of impoverished homeless Americans she comes to lead, was published by Harper in May 2015.
His articles and essays have been selected for the anthologies The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and The Best Creative Nonfiction.
