Capouya, Emile 1925–2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born 1925 in New York, NY; died October 13, 2005, in East Meredith, NY. Editor, publisher, and author. Capouya was a literary editor, as well as an educator and cofounder of New Amsterdam Books. Born in Manhattan and growing up in the Bronx, his first taste of working on literary magazines was at DeWitt Clinton High School, where he counted James Baldwin among his peers. With high school over, he joined the merchant marine during World War II. After the war, he found work as a stevedore in New York City, where he also attended Columbia University; he would later also attend Oxford University. Eventually, Capouya gained employment as an editor for New Directions, the publishing house where he helped publish the writings of such authors as Tennessee Williams, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce. In 1969, he joined the Nation staff as a literary editor; later, he also began contributing reviews and articles to such periodicals as the Saturday Review and the New York Times. In 1971, Capouya added teaching to his resume, becoming a faculty member for both the Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York and at the Juilliard School. Other posts included working for the New American Review as an editor and at Hippocrene Books as editorial director. Leaving the Nation in 1981, Capouya went on to found New Amsterdam Books with his wife, Keitha, with whom he would edit the Petr Alekseevich book The Essential Kropotkin (1975). Capouya was also the author of In the Sparrow Hills: Stories (1993), which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the novella The Rising of the Moon (2003).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, November 9, 2005, p. B11.

New York Times, November 7, 2005, p. A23.

Washington Post, November 10, 2005, p. B6.