USC Cinematic Arts

American novelist and essayist, born in New York City, educated at Harvard University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He became a professor of literature at Tufts University.

In his meticulously researched The Death of Che Guevara (1983), Cantor blends history and fiction to explore the intricacies of the man behind the legendary guerrilla fighter. Krazy Kat (1987), his second novel, is built on the character from George Herriman's comic strip of that name; the cartoon characters are subjected to various realities of modern life such as atomic weaponry and psychoanalysis in Cantor's version. A book of essays, The Space Between: Literature and Politics (1981), uses fictional and historical figures as well as personal reminiscences to analyse the present time. A later collection of essays is Giving Birth to One's Own Mother (1991).

Read more:

Jay Cantor Biography - (1948– ),

The Death of Che Guevara,

Krazy Kat,

The Space Between: Literature and Politics - University, Literature, and Essays - JRank Articles