description: Charlie Citrine, an intellectual, middle-aged author of award-winning biographies and plays, contemplates two significant figures and philosophies in his Von Humboldt Fleisher, a dead poet who had been his mentor, and Rinaldo Cantabile, a very-much-alive minor mafioso who has been the bane of Humboldt's existence. Humboldt had taught Charlie that art is powerful and that one should be true to one's creative spirit. Rinaldo, Charlie's self-appointed financial adviser, has always urged Charlie to use his art to turn a profit. At the novel's end, Charlie has managed to set his own course.
language: English
title: Humboldt's Gift
titlecomplete: Humboldt's Gift
characters: Rinaldo Cantabile, Denise Citrine, Demmie Vonghel, Renata Koffritz, Charlie Citrine, Von Humboldt Fleisher, Pierre Thaxter
genres: Classics, Fiction, The United States Of America, Nobel Prize, Novels, 20th Century, Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, American
ratings_count: 9293
places: Chicago, Illinois, New York City, New York
awards: awardedAt: 189331200000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 189331200000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 189331200000
name: Society of Midland Authors Award
category: Adult Fiction
publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)