Steiner, (Francis) George (1929– )

French-born US critic and writer. His books, which focus on the relationships between the arts, culture, and society, include The Death of Tragedy (1960); In Bluebeard's Castle (1971), a novella about Hitler; The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. (1981); and Proofs and Three Parables (1993), which won the PEN/Macmillan Fiction Prize. He is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to journals and newspapers, including the New Yorker, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Guardian.

His non-fiction includes Tolstoy or Dostoevsky (1958), a critical analysis of the two great masters of the Russian novel, and No Passion Spent: Essays 1978–96 (1996). His book on translation, After Babel (1975), was televised in 1977 as The Tongues of Men. A volume of autobiography, Errata: an Examined Life, was published in 1997. Grammars of Creation (2001) discusses a range of subjects from cosmology to poetry.

He has been a professor of comparative literature at the University of Oxford, and professor of poetry at Harvard University, as well as a fellow at Cambridge University.