Editing Don DeLillo (section)

==Works==

===1970s===
DeLillo's inaugural decade of novel writing has been his most productive to date, resulting in the writing and publication of six novels between 1971 and 1978.<ref name="theaustralian1"/>

DeLillo resigned from the advertising industry in 1964, moved into a modest apartment near the [[Queens–Midtown Tunnel]] ("It wasn't Paris in the 1920s, but I was happy"), and began work on his first novel.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.artforum.com/diary/id=36810 |title=mean streak – artforum.com / scene & herd |publisher=Artforum.com |access-date=November 23, 2013 |archive-date=November 11, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111020258/http://www.artforum.com/diary/id=36810 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Of the early days of his writing career, he remarked: "I lived in a very minimal kind of way. My telephone would be $4.20 every month. I was paying a rent of sixty dollars a month. And I was becoming a writer. So in one sense, I was ignoring the movements of the time."<ref name="guernicamag.com"/> His first novel, ''[[Americana (novel)|Americana]]'', was written over four years<ref name="nytimes.com"/> and finally published in 1971, to modest critical praise. It concerned "a television network programmer who hits the road in search of the big picture".<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

DeLillo revised the novel in 1989 for paperback reprinting. Reflecting on the novel later in his career, he said, "I don't think my first novel would have been published today as I submitted it. I don't think an editor would have read 50 pages of it. It was very overdone and shaggy, but two young editors saw something that seemed worth pursuing and eventually we all did some work on the book and it was published."<ref name="online.wsj.com">{{cite news|last=Alter |first=Alexandra |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703906204575027094208914032 |title=Don DeLillo Deconstructed|work=The Wall Street Journal|date=January 29, 2010 |access-date=March 16, 2010}}</ref> Later still, DeLillo continued to feel a degree of surprise that ''Americana'' was published: "I was working on my first novel, ''Americana'', for two years before I ever realized that I could be a writer [...] I had absolutely no assurance that this book would be published because I knew that there were elements that I simply didn't know how to improve at that point. So I wrote for another two years and finished the novel. It wasn't all that difficult to find a publisher, to my astonishment. I didn't have a representative. I didn't know anything about publishing. But an editor at [[Houghton Mifflin]] read the manuscript and decided that this was worth pursuing."<ref name="washingtonpost.com"/>

''Americana'' was followed in rapid succession by the American college football/nuclear war black comedy ''[[End Zone (novel)|End Zone]]'' (1972)—written under the working titles "The Self-Erasing Word" and "Modes of Disaster Technology"<ref name="newyorker.com">{{cite magazine|author=D. T. Max |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/06/11/final-destination |title=Letter from Austin: Final Destination |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref>—and the rock and roll satire ''[[Great Jones Street (novel)|Great Jones Street]]'' (1973), which DeLillo later felt was "one of the books I wish I'd done differently. It should be tighter, and probably a little funnier."<ref name="guernicamag.com"/> He married Barbara Bennett, a former banker turned landscape designer, in 1975.

DeLillo's fourth novel, ''[[Ratner's Star]]'' (1976)—which according to DeLillo is "structure[d] [...] on the writings of [[Lewis Carroll]], in particular ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland|Alice in Wonderland]]'' and ''[[Through the Looking-Glass|Alice Through the Looking Glass]]''<ref name="ReferenceC"/>—took two years to write and drew numerous favorable comparisons to the works of [[Thomas Pynchon]].<ref name="theparisreview.org" /> This "conceptual monster", as DeLillo scholar Tom LeClair has called it, is "the picaresque story of a 14-year-old math genius who joins an international consortium of mad scientists decoding an alien message."<ref>{{cite web|author=Published |url=https://nymag.com/arts/books/features/31522/ |title=Our Guide to the Don DeLillo Oeuvre – New York Magazine |publisher=Nymag.com |date=May 7, 2007 |access-date=March 16, 2010}}</ref> DeLillo has said it was both one of the most difficult books for him to write and his personal favorite.<ref name="nytimes">{{cite news |last=Harris |first=Robert R. |date=October 10, 1982 |title=A Talk with Don DeLillo |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/16/lifetimes/del-v-talk1982.html}}</ref>

Following this early attempt at a major long novel, DeLillo ended the decade with two shorter works. ''[[Players (DeLillo novel)|Players]]'' (1977), originally conceived as "based on what could be called the intimacy of language—what people who live together really sound like",<ref name="perival">{{cite web|url=http://perival.com/delillo/players.html |title=Players – Don DeLillo – 1977 |publisher=Perival.com |date=December 18, 2012 |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref> concerned the lives of a young yuppie couple as the husband gets involved with a cell of domestic terrorists.<ref name="perival" /> Its 1978 successor, ''[[Running Dog (novel)|Running Dog]]'' (1978), written in four months,<ref name="guernicamag.com"/> was a thriller about a hunt for a celluloid reel of Hitler's sexual exploits.

Of ''Running Dog'', DeLillo remarked, "What I was really getting at in ''Running Dog'' was a sense of the terrible acquisitiveness in which we live coupled with a final indifference to the object. After all the mad attempts to acquire the thing, everyone suddenly decides that, well, maybe we really don't care about this so much anyway. This was something I felt characterized our lives at the time the book was written in the mid to late seventies. I think this was part of American consciousness then."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://perival.com/delillo/runningdog.html |title=Running Dog – Don DeLillo – 1978 |publisher=Perival.com |date=January 30, 2010 |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref>

In 1978, DeLillo was awarded the [[Guggenheim Fellowship]], which he used to fund a trip around the Middle East before settling in Greece, where he wrote his next novels, ''[[Amazons (novel)|Amazons]]'' and ''[[The Names (novel)|The Names]]''.<ref name="theaustralian1"/>

Of his first six novels and his rapid writing turnover later in his career, DeLillo said, "I wasn't learning to slow down and examine what I was doing more closely. I don't have regrets about that work, but I do think that if I had been a bit less hasty in starting each new book, I might have produced somewhat better work in the 1970s. My first novel took so long and was such an effort that once I was free of it, I almost became carefree in a sense and moved right through the decade, stopping, in a way, only at ''Ratner's Star'' (1976), which was an enormous challenge for me and probably a bigger challenge for the reader. But I slowed down in the 1980s and '90s."<ref name="theaustralian1"/> DeLillo has also acknowledged some of the weaknesses of his 1970s works, reflecting in 2007: "I knew I wasn't doing utterly serious work, let me put it that way."<ref name="guernicamag.com"/>

===1980s===
The beginning of the 1980s saw the most unusual and uncharacteristic publication in DeLillo's career. The sports novel ''[[Amazons (novel)|Amazons]]'', a mock memoir of the first woman to play in the National Hockey League, is a far more lighthearted novel than his previous others. DeLillo published the novel under the pseudonym Cleo Birdwell, and later requested publishers compiling a bibliography for a reprint of a later novel to expunge the novel from their lists.{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}

While DeLillo was living in Greece,<ref name="latimes.com">{{cite news|last=Rayner |first=Richard |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-caw-paperback-writers3-2010jan03,0,4308244.story |title=Tuning back in to 'White Noise' |work=Los Angeles Times |date=January 3, 2010 |access-date=March 16, 2010}}</ref> he took three years<ref name="nytimes"/> to write ''[[The Names (novel)|The Names]]'' (1982), a complex thriller about "a risk analyst who crosses paths with a cult of assassins in the Middle East".<ref name="nytimes.com"/> While lauded by an increasing number of critics, DeLillo was still relatively unknown outside small academic circles and did not reach a wide readership with this novel. Also in 1982, DeLillo finally broke his self-imposed ban on media coverage by giving his first major interview to [[Tom LeClair]],<ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal|title=An Interview with Don DeLillo: Conducted by Thomas LeClair|journal=Contemporary Literature|date=Winter 1982|volume=23|issue=1|pages=19–31|jstor=1208140|doi=10.2307/1208140|last1=Leclair|first1=Thomas|last2=Delillo|first2=Don}}</ref> who had first tracked DeLillo down for an interview while he was in Greece in 1979. On that occasion, DeLillo handed LeClair a business card with his name printed on it and beneath that the message "I don't want to talk about it."<ref name="jstor.org"/>

With the 1985 publication of his eighth novel, ''[[White Noise (novel)|White Noise]]'', DeLillo rapidly became a noted and respected novelist. ''White Noise'' was arguably a major breakthrough both commercially and artistically for DeLillo, earning him a [[National Book Award for Fiction]] and a place in the canon of contemporary postmodern novelists.<ref name="nba1985" /> DeLillo remained as detached as ever from his growing reputation: when called upon to give an acceptance speech for the award, he simply said, "I'm sorry I couldn't be here tonight, but I thank you all for coming," and then sat down.<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk"/><ref name="online">{{cite news|last=Alter |first=Alexandra |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704094304575029673526948334?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_11 |title=What Don DeLillo's Books Tell Him |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |date=January 30, 2010 |access-date=April 19, 2022}}</ref>

''White Noise'''s influence can be seen in the writing of [[David Foster Wallace]], [[Jonathan Lethem]], [[Jonathan Franzen]], [[Dave Eggers]], [[Zadie Smith]] and [[Richard Powers]] (who provides an introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of the novel).<ref name="latimes.com"/> Among the 39 proposed titles for the novel were "All Souls", "Ultrasonic",<ref name="newyorker.com"/> "The American Book of the Dead", "Psychic Data" and "Mein Kampf".<ref name="perival_a">{{cite web|url=http://perival.com/delillo/whitenoise.html |title=White Noise – Don DeLillo – 1985 |publisher=Perival.com |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref> In 2005 DeLillo said "White Noise" was a fine choice, adding, "Once a title is affixed to a book, it becomes as indelible as a sentence or a paragraph."<ref name="perival_a" />

DeLillo followed ''White Noise'' with ''[[Libra (novel)|Libra]]'' (1988), a speculative fictionalized life of [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] up to the 1963 [[assassination of John F. Kennedy]]. DeLillo undertook a vast research project, which included reading at least half of the [[Warren Commission]] report (which DeLillo called "the Oxford English Dictionary of the assassination and also the [[Joycean]] novel. This is the one document that captures the full richness and madness and meaning of the event, despite the fact that it omits about a ton and a half of material.")<ref name="theparisreview.org" /> Written with the working titles "American Blood" and "Texas School Book", ''Libra'' became an international bestseller, one of five finalists for the National Book Award, and the winner of the next year's ''[[The Irish Times|Irish Times]]'' Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize.<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 24, 1989 |title=Don DLillo Wins Irish Fiction Prize |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/24/books/don-delillo-wins-irish-fiction-prize.html}}</ref>

The novel also elicited fierce critical division, with some critics praising DeLillo's take on the Kennedy assassination while others decried it. [[George Will]], in ''[[The Washington Post]]'', declared the book an affront to America and "an act of literary vandalism and bad citizenship".<ref name="perival.com">{{cite web |title=DeLillo Detractors |url=http://perival.com/delillo/detractors.html |access-date=March 16, 2010 |publisher=Perival.com}}</ref> DeLillo responded "I don't take it seriously, but being called a 'bad citizen' is a compliment to a novelist, at least to my mind. That's exactly what we ought to do. We ought to be bad citizens. We ought to, in the sense that we're writing against what power represents, and often what government represents, and what the corporation dictates, and what consumer consciousness has come to mean. In that sense, if we're bad citizens, we're doing our job."<ref name="ny" /> In the same interview DeLillo rejected Will's claim that DeLillo blames America for Lee Harvey Oswald, countering that he instead blamed America for George Will. DeLillo has frequently reflected on the significance of the Kennedy assassination to not only his own work but American culture and history as a whole, remarking in 2005, "November 22nd, 1963, marked the real beginning of the 1960s. It was the beginning of a series of catastrophes: political assassinations, the war in Vietnam, the denial of Civil Rights and the revolts that occasioned, youth revolt in American cities, right up to Watergate. When I was starting out as a writer it seemed to me that a large part of the material you could find in my novels—this sense of fatality, of widespread suspicion, of mistrust—came from the assassination of JFK."<ref name="perival_b" />

===1990s===
DeLillo's concerns about the position of the novelist and the novel in a media- and terrorist-dominated society were made clear in his next novel, ''[[Mao II]]'' (1991). Influenced by the events surrounding the [[Satanic Verses controversy|fatwa]] placed on [[Salman Rushdie]] and the intrusion of the press into the life of [[J. D. Salinger]], ''Mao II'' earned DeLillo significant critical praise from, among others, [[John Banville]] and [[Thomas Pynchon]].<ref name="nytimes.com" /> It won the [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction|PEN/Faulkner Award]]  in 1992.

Following ''Mao II'', DeLillo went underground and spent several years writing and researching his 11th novel. In 1992, he published the folio short story "[[Pafko at the Wall]]" in ''[[Harper's Magazine]]''. The piece recounts [[Bobby Thomson]]'s [[Shot Heard 'Round the World (baseball)|Shot Heard 'Round the World]] from the perspective of various witnesses, real and fictional. He told ''[[The Paris Review]]'', "Sometime in late 1991, I started writing something new and didn't know what it would be – a novel, a short story, a long story. It was simply a piece of writing, and it gave me more pleasure than any other writing I've done. It turned into a novella, ''Pafko at the Wall'', and it appeared in ''Harper's'' about a year after I started it. At some point I decided I wasn't finished with the piece. I was sending signals into space and getting echoes back, like a dolphin or a bat. So the piece, slightly altered, is now the prologue to a novel-in-progress, which will have a different title. And the pleasure has long since faded into the slogging reality of the no man's land of the long novel. But I'm still hearing the echoes."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Begley |first=Adam |title=The Art of Fiction No. 135 |work=[[The Paris Review]] |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1887/the-art-of-fiction-no-135-don-delillo}}</ref>

This would become the prologue of his epic Cold War history ''[[Underworld (DeLillo novel)|Underworld]]''. DeLillo took inspiration from the October 4, 1951, front page of ''[[The New York Times]]'', which juxtaposed Thomson's home-run alongside the news that the [[Soviet Union]] had tested a [[hydrogen bomb]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 4, 1951 |title=Giants Capture Pennant, Beating Dodgers 5-4 in 9th on Thomson's 3-Run Homer |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/05/home/frontpage.html}}</ref> The book was widely heralded as a masterpiece, with novelist and critic [[Martin Amis]] saying it marked "the ascension of a great writer."<ref>{{cite news |author = Amis, Martin |title = Survivors of the Cold War |url = https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/05/reviews/971005.05amisdt.html |work = The New York Times |date = October 5, 1997}}</ref> [[Harold Bloom]] called it "the culmination of what Don can do."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Price |first=Leonard |date=June 15, 2009 |title=Harold Bloom on Blood Meridian |work=[[The A.V. Club]] |url=https://www.avclub.com/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian-1798216782}}</ref>

''Underworld'' went on to become one of DeLillo's most acclaimed novels to date, achieving mainstream success and earning nominations for the National Book Award and ''The New York Times'' Best Books of the Year in 1997, and a second Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nomination in 1998.<ref name="nba1997" /> The novel won the 1998 [[American Book Awards|American Book Award]] and the [[William Dean Howells Medal]] in 2000.<ref name="Scott">{{Cite news |last=Scott |first=A. O. |date=May 21, 2006 |title=In Search of the Best |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/review/scott-essay.html}}</ref>

DeLillo later expressed surprise at ''Underworld'''s success. In 2007, he remarked: "When I finished with ''Underworld'', I didn't really have any all-too-great hopes, to be honest. It's some pretty complicated stuff: 800 pages, more than 100 different characters—who's going to be interested in that?"<ref name="dumpendebat.net"/> After rereading it in 2010, over ten years after its publication, DeLillo said that rereading it "made me wonder whether I would be capable of that kind of writing now—the range and scope of it. There are certain parts of the book where the exuberance, the extravagance, I don't know, the overindulgence....There are city scenes in New York that seem to transcend reality in a certain way."<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk"/>

===2000s===
Although they have received some acclaim in places, DeLillo's post-''[[Underworld (DeLillo novel)|Underworld]]'' novels have been often viewed by critics as "disappointing and slight, especially when held up against his earlier, big-canvas epics",<ref name="online"/> marking a shift "away from sweeping, era-defining novels" such as ''White Noise'', ''Libra'' and ''Underworld'' to a more "spare and oblique"<ref name="online"/> style, characterized by "decreased length, the decommissioning of plot machinery and the steep deceleration of narrative time".<ref>{{cite news|first=Mark|last=O'Connell |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/09/angel-esmeralda-don-delillo-review?newsfeed=true |title=The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories by Don DeLillo – review |newspaper=[[The Observer]]  |date= September 9, 2012|access-date=November 23, 2013 |location=London}}</ref>

DeLillo has said of this shift to shorter novels, "If a longer novel announces itself, I'll write it. A novel creates its own structure and develops its own terms. I tend to follow. And I never try to stretch what I sense is a compact book."<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk"/> In a March 2010 interview, it was reported that DeLillo's deliberate stylistic shift had been informed by his having recently reread several slim but seminal European novels, including [[Albert Camus]]'s ''[[The Stranger (Camus novel)|The Stranger]]'', [[Peter Handke]]'s ''[[The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick]]'', and [[Max Frisch]]'s ''[[Man in the Holocene]]''.<ref name="theaustralian1"/>

After the publication and extensive publicity drive for ''Underworld'', DeLillo once again retreated from the spotlight to write his 12th novel, surfacing with ''[[The Body Artist (novel)|The Body Artist]]'' in 2001. The novel has many established DeLillo preoccupations, particularly its interest in performance art and domestic privacies in relation to the wider scope of events. But it is very different in style and tone from the epic history of ''Underworld'', and met with mixed critical reception.

DeLillo followed ''The Body Artist'' with 2003's ''[[Cosmopolis (novel)|Cosmopolis]]'', a modern reinterpretation of [[James Joyce]]'s ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' transposed to New York around the time of the collapse of the [[dot-com bubble]] in 2000. The novel was met at the time with a largely negative reception from critics, with several high-profile critics and novelists—notably [[John Updike]]—voicing their objections to its style and tone.

When asked in 2005 how he felt about the novel's mixed reception compared to the broader positive consensus afforded to ''[[Underworld (DeLillo novel)|Underworld]]'', DeLillo remarked: "I try to stay detached from that aspect of my work as a writer. I didn't read any reviews or articles. Maybe it [the negative reception] was connected to [[September 11 attacks|September 11]]. I'd almost finished writing the book when the attacks took place, and so they couldn't have had any influence on the book's conception, nor on its writing. Perhaps for certain readers this upset their expectations."<ref name="perival_b" /> Critical opinions have since been revised, the novel latterly being seen as prescient for its focus on the flaws and weaknesses of the international financial system and cybercapital.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-09-12 |title=Contact With The Real: On 'Cosmopolis' |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/contact-with-the-real-on-cosmopolis/ |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Jeffery |first=Ben |date=2014-11-14 |title=Foes of God |url=https://thepointmag.com/criticism/foes-god/ |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=The Point Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>

DeLillo's papers were acquired in 2004 by the [[Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]],<ref>{{cite news| title =Ransom Center Acquires Archive of Noted American Novelist Don DeLillo| url =http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/news/press/2004/delillo.html| work =HRC News| date =October 20, 2004| url-status=dead| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20070423141147/http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/news/press/2004/delillo.html| archive-date =April 23, 2007}}</ref> reputedly for "half a million dollars".<ref name="newyorker.com"/> There are "[one] hundred and twenty-five boxes" of DeLillo materials, including various drafts and correspondence.<ref name="newyorker.com"/> Of his decision to donate his papers to the Ransom Center, DeLillo has said: "I ran out of space and also felt, as one does at a certain age, that I was running out of time. I didn't want to leave behind an enormous mess of papers for family members to deal with. Of course, I've since produced more paper—novel, play, essay, etc.—and so the cycle begins again."<ref name="newyorker.com"/>

DeLillo published his final novel of the decade, ''[[Falling Man (novel)|Falling Man]]'', in 2007. The novel concerns the impact on one family of the [[9/11]] terrorist attacks on the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] in New York, "an intimate story which is encompassed by a global event".<ref name="dumpendebat.net"/> DeLillo said he originally "didn't ever want to write a novel about 9/11" and "had an idea for a different book" he had "been working on for half a year" in 2004 when he came up with the idea for the novel, beginning work on it following the reelection of [[George W. Bush]] that November.<ref name="dumpendebat.net"/>

Although highly anticipated and eagerly awaited by critics, who felt that DeLillo was one of the contemporary writers best equipped to tackle the events of 9/11 in novelistic form, the novel met with a mixed critical reception and garnered no major literary awards or nominations. DeLillo remained unconcerned by this relative lack of critical acclaim, remarking in 2010, "In the 1970s, when I started writing novels, I was a figure in the margins, and that's where I belonged. If I'm headed back that way, that's fine with me because that's always where I felt I belonged. Things changed for me in the 1980s and 1990s, but I've always preferred to be somewhere in the corner of a room, observing."<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk"/>

On July 24, 2009, ''Entertainment Weekly'' announced that [[David Cronenberg]] would adapt ''[[Cosmopolis (novel)|Cosmopolis]]'' for the screen, with "a view to eventually direct."<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://ew.com/article/2009/07/24/david-cronenberg-cosmopolis/ |title=David Cronenberg journeys to 'Cosmopolis' |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |date=July 24, 2009 |access-date=March 16, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090726094922/http://news-briefs.ew.com/2009/07/david-cronenberg-cosmopolis.html |archive-date=July 26, 2009}}</ref> ''[[Cosmopolis (film)|Cosmopolis]]'', eventually released in 2012, became the first direct adaptation for the screen of a DeLillo novel, although both ''Libra'' and ''Underworld'' had previously been optioned for screen treatments. There were discussions about adapting ''[[End Zone]]'', and DeLillo has written an original screenplay for the film ''[[Game 6]]''.

DeLillo ended the decade by making an unexpected appearance at a [[PEN America|PEN]] event on the steps of the [[New York Public Library]] in support of Chinese dissident writer [[Liu Xiaobo]], who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power" on December 31, 2009.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/4453/prmID/172 |title=PEN American Center – Writers Rally for Release of Liu Xiaobo |publisher=Pen.org |date=December 31, 2009 |access-date=March 16, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100327125404/http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/4453/prmID/172 |archive-date=March 27, 2010}}</ref>

===2010s===
[[File:Don delillo nyc 02-cropped.jpg|right|thumb|DeLillo in New York City, 2011]]
DeLillo published ''[[Point Omega]]'', his 15th novel, in February 2010. According to DeLillo, the novel considers an idea from "the writing of the Jesuit thinker and paleontologist [Pierre] Teilhard de Chardin."<ref name="online.wsj.com"/> The Omega Point of the title "[is] the possible idea that human consciousness is reaching a point of exhaustion and that what comes next may be either a paroxysm or something enormously sublime and unenvisionable."<ref name="online.wsj.com"/> ''Point Omega'' is DeLillo's shortest novel to date, and he has said it could be considered a companion piece to ''[[The Body Artist]]'': "In its reflections on time and loss, this may be a [[philosophical fiction|philosophical novel]] and maybe, considering its themes, the book shares a place in my work with ''The Body Artist'', another novel of abbreviated length."<ref>{{cite web |last=Hales |first=Dianne R. |url=http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Interview/Don-DeLillo/ba-p/2144 |title=Don DeLillo – The Barnes & Noble Review |publisher=[[Barnes & Noble]] |date=February 1, 2010 |access-date=November 23, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111035507/http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Interview/Don-DeLillo/ba-p/2144 |archive-date=November 11, 2013}}</ref>
Reviews were polarized, with some saying the novel was a return to form and innovative, while others complained about its brevity and lack of plot and engaging characters. Upon its initial release, ''Point Omega'' spent one week on ''[[The New York Times Best Seller list]]'', peaking at No. 35 on the extended version of the list during its one-week stay on the list.<ref>{{cite news|last=Schuessler |first=Jennifer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/books/review/InsideList-t.html |title=TBR – Inside the List |newspaper=NYTimes.com |date=February 18, 2010 |access-date=March 16, 2010}}</ref>

In a January 29, 2010, interview with ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', DeLillo discussed at great length ''Point Omega'', his views of writing, and his plans for the future. When asked why his recent novels had been shorter, DeLillo replied, "Each book tells me what it wants or what it is, and I'd be perfectly content to write another long novel. It just has to happen."<ref name="online.wsj.com"/> While DeLillo is open to the idea of returning to the form of the long novel, the interview also revealed that he had no interest in doing as many of his literary contemporaries have done and writing a memoir.<ref name="online.wsj.com"/> DeLillo also made some observations on the state of literature and the challenges facing young writers:
<blockquote>It's tougher to be a young writer today than when I was a young writer. I don't think my first novel would have been published today as I submitted it. I don't think an editor would have read 50 pages of it. It was very overdone and shaggy, but two young editors saw something that seemed worth pursuing and eventually we all did some work on the book and it was published. I don't think publishers have that kind of tolerance these days, and I guess possibly as a result, more writers go to writing class now than then. I think first, fiction, and second, novels, are much more refined in terms of language, but they may tend to be too well behaved, almost in response to the narrower market.<ref name="online.wsj.com"/></blockquote>

In a February 21, 2010, interview with ''[[The Times]]'', DeLillo reaffirmed his belief in the validity and importance of the novel in a technology- and media-driven age, offering a more optimistic opinion of the future of the novel than his contemporary [[Philip Roth]] had done in a recent interview:

<blockquote>It is the form that allows a writer the greatest opportunity to explore human experience....For that reason, reading a novel is potentially a significant act. Because there are so many varieties of human experience, so many kinds of interaction between humans, and so many ways of creating patterns in the novel that can't be created in a short story, a play, a poem or a movie. The novel, simply, offers more opportunities for a reader to understand the world better, including the world of artistic creation. That sounds pretty grand, but I think it's true.<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk"/></blockquote>

DeLillo received two further significant literary awards in 2010: the [[St. Louis Literary Award]] on October 21, 2010 (previous recipients include [[Salman Rushdie]], [[E.L. Doctorow]], [[John Updike]], [[William Gass]], [[Joyce Carol Oates]], [[Joan Didion]] and [[Tennessee Williams]]);<ref>{{cite news|last=Henderson |first=Jane |url=https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/book-blog/article_79a4da40-afa4-11df-8002-00127992bc8b.html |title=DeLillo to receive STL Literary Award |newspaper=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=August 24, 2010 |access-date=December 30, 2011}}</ref> and his second [[PEN American Center|PEN Award]], the [[PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction]], on October 13, 2010.

DeLillo's first collection of short stories, ''The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories'', covering short stories published between 1979 and 2011, was published in November 2011.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.simonandschuster.com/Angel-Esmeralda/Don-DeLillo/9781451655841 |title=Books: The Angel Esmeralda |date=November 15, 2011 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-1-4423-4648-2 |access-date=December 30, 2011}}</ref> It received favorable reviews and was a finalist for both the 2012 [[The Story Prize|Story Prize]] award<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thestoryprize.org/ |title=The Story Prize |publisher=[[The Story Prize]] |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref> and the 2012 [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction|PEN/Faulkner]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.penfaulkner.org/2012/03/26/about-the-winner-finalists/#DeLilloAbout |title= About the Winner & Finalists &#124; PEN / Faulkner Foundation|website=www.penfaulkner.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121220182917/http://www.penfaulkner.org/2012/03/26/about-the-winner-finalists/#DeLilloAbout |archive-date=December 20, 2012}}</ref> as well as being longlisted for the [[Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.frankoconnor-shortstory-award.net/ |title=The Frank O'Connor |publisher=Frankoconnor-shortstory-award.net |access-date=November 23, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203032031/http://www.frankoconnor-shortstory-award.net/ |archive-date=December 3, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> ''New York Times Book Review'' contributor Liesl Schillinger praised it, saying, "DeLillo packs fertile ruminations and potent consolation into each of these rich, dense, concentrated stories."<ref>{{cite news|last=Schillinger|first=Liesl|title=Don DeLillo and the Varieties of American Unease|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/books/review/the-angel-esmeralda-nine-stories-by-don-delillo-book-review.html?pagewanted=all|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 17, 2011}}</ref>

DeLillo received the 2012 Carl Sandburg Literary Award on October 17, 2012, on the campus of the [[University of Illinois at Chicago]]. The prize is "presented annually to an acclaimed author in recognition of outstanding contributions to the literary world and honors a significant work or body of work that has enhanced the public's awareness of the written word."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cplfoundation.org/site/PageServer?pagename=events_sandburgawards_co |title=Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner |publisher=[[Chicago Public Library]] Foundation |date=October 23, 2013 |access-date=November 23, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202230958/http://www.cplfoundation.org/site/PageServer?pagename=events_sandburgawards_co |archive-date=December 2, 2013}}</ref>

On January 29, 2013, ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' announced that [[Luca Guadagnino]] would direct an adaptation of ''The Body Artist'' called ''Body Art''.<ref>{{cite magazine|first=John|last=Hopewell |url=https://variety.com/2013/film/markets-festivals/cronenberg-delillo-branco-reteam-for-body-art-1118065323/ |title=Cronenberg, DeLillo, Branco reteam for 'Body Art' |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=January 29, 2013 |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref> On April 26, 2013, it was announced that DeLillo had received the inaugural [[Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction]] (formerly the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction), with the presentation of the award due to take place during the 2013 [[National Book Festival]], Sept. 21–22, 2013.<ref name="loc.gov"/><ref name="washingtonpost">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/don-delillo-is-first-recipient-of-library-of-congress-prize-for-american-fiction/2013/04/24/ae1ff5f8-acd5-11e2-b6fd-ba6f5f26d70e_story_1.html |title=Don DeLillo is first recipient of Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction |newspaper=The Washington Post |date= April 25, 2013|access-date=November 23, 2013 |first=Ron |last=Charles}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2013/04/25/delillo-wins-inaugural-library-of-congress-prize-for-american-fiction.html |title=DeLillo Wins Inaugural Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction |website=[[The Daily Beast]] |date=April 25, 2013 |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref><ref name="artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com">{{cite news| url=http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/new-literary-prize-goes-to-old-pro-delillo/ | work=The New York Times | first=John | last=Williams | title=New Literary Prize Goes to DeLillo | date=April 25, 2013}}</ref>

The prize honors "an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished not only for its mastery of the art but for its originality of thought and imagination. The award seeks to commend strong, unique, enduring voices that—throughout long, consistently accomplished careers—have told us something about the American experience."<ref name="loc.gov"/> In a statement issued in response to the award, DeLillo said, "When I received news of this award, my first thoughts were of my mother and father, who came to this country the hard way, as young people confronting a new language and culture. In a significant sense, the Library of Congress Prize is the culmination of their efforts and a tribute to their memory."<ref name="artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com"/>

In November 2012, DeLillo revealed that he was at work on a new novel, his 16th, and that "the [main] character spends a lot of time watching file footage on a wide screen, images of a disaster."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/68430780.html |title=Cosmopolis Interviews – Rob Pattinson, David Cronenberg, Don Delillo |publisher=[[Oh No They Didn't]]com |date=April 23, 2012 |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Kevin|last=Nance |url=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-12/features/ct-prj-1014-don-delillo-20121012_1_mao-ii-angel-esmeralda-printers-row |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014041158/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-12/features/ct-prj-1014-don-delillo-20121012_1_mao-ii-angel-esmeralda-printers-row |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 14, 2012 |title=Don DeLillo talks about writing |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=October 12, 2012 |access-date=November 23, 2013}}</ref> In August 2015, DeLillo's publisher Simon & Schuster announced that the novel, ''[[Zero K (novel)|Zero K]]'', would be published in May 2016.<ref name="books.simonandschuster.com">{{Cite book|url=https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Zero-K/Don-DeLillo/9781501138072|title=Zero K|date=May 3, 2016|isbn=978-1-5011-3807-2|via=www.simonandschuster.com|last1=Delillo|first1=Don}}</ref> The advanced blurb for the novel is as follows:

<blockquote>Jeffrey Lockhart's father, Ross, is a George Soros-like billionaire now in his sixties, with a younger wife, Artis, whose health is failing. Ross is the primary investor in a deeply remote and secret compound where death is controlled and bodies are preserved until a future moment when medicine and technology can reawaken them. Jeffrey joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say "an uncertain farewell" to her as she surrenders her body. Ross Lockhart is not driven by the hope for immortality, for power and wealth beyond the grave. He is driven by love for his wife, for Artis, without whom he feels life is not worth living. It is that which compels him to submit to death long before his time. Jeffrey heartily disapproves. He is committed to living, to "the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth. "Thus begins an emotionally resonant novel that weighs the darkness of the world—terrorism, floods, fires, famine, death—against the beauty of everyday life; love, awe, "the intimate touch of earth and sun." Brilliantly observed and infused with humor, Don Delillo's ''Zero K'' is an acute observation about the fragility and meaning of life, about embracing our family, this world, our language, and our humanity.<ref name="books.simonandschuster.com"/></blockquote>

In November 2015, DeLillo received the 2015 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 66th National Book Awards ceremony. The ceremony was held on November 8 in New York City, and he was presented his award by Pulitzer Prize winner [[Jennifer Egan]], a writer profoundly influenced by DeLillo's work.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.flavorwire.com/535906/don-delillo-to-receive-national-book-award-for-contribution-to-american-letters|title=Don DeLillo to Receive National Book Award for Contribution to American Letters|first=Jonathon|last=Sturgeon|website=Flavorwire}}</ref> In his acceptance speech, DeLillo reflected upon his career as a reader as well as a writer, recalling examining his personal book collection and feeling a profound sense of personal connection to literature: "Here I'm not the writer at all, I'm a grateful reader. When I look at my bookshelves I find myself gazing like a museum-goer."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters_2015_ddelillo.html |title=Don DeLillo to receive NBF Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters |access-date=April 26, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423042118/http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters_2015_ddelillo.html |archive-date=April 23, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In February 2016, DeLillo was the guest of honor at an academic conference dedicated to his work, "Don DeLillo: Fiction Rescues History", a three-day event at the [[Sorbonne Nouvelle]] in Paris.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://delilloparisconf.byethost12.com/ |title=Archived copy |access-date=April 26, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151118044936/http://delilloparisconf.byethost12.com/ |archive-date=November 18, 2015}}</ref>

Speaking to ''[[The Guardian]]'' in November 2018, DeLillo revealed he was working on a new novel, his 17th, "set three years in the future. But I'm not trying to imagine the future in the usual terms. I'm trying to imagine what has been torn apart and what can be put back together, and I don't know the answer. I hope I can arrive at an answer through writing the fiction."<ref>{{cite news|last=Brooks |first=Xan |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/nov/05/don-delillo-trumps-america-love-lies-bleeding |title=Don DeLillo on Trump's America: 'I'm not sure the country is recoverable' |newspaper=The Guardian |date=November 6, 2018 |access-date=November 8, 2018}}</ref>

===2020s===
{{update section|Library of America|date=January 2023}}
DeLillo's 17th novel, ''[[The Silence (novel)|The Silence]]'', was published by [[Charles Scribner's Sons|Scribner]] in October 2020. In February 2021, producer [[Uri Singer]] acquired the rights to the novel; later the same year, reports emerged that the playwright [[Jez Butterworth]] was planning to adapt ''The Silence'' for the screen.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://variety.com/2021/film/news/jez-butterworth-don-delillo-the-silence-indiana-jones-5-1235087278/|title=Jez Butterworth Adapting Don DeLillo's 'The Silence' (EXCLUSIVE)|first1=Brent|last1=Lang|date=October 12, 2021|access-date=March 17, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://deadline.com/2021/02/white-noise-uri-singer-acquires-rights-don-delillo-the-silence-1234700163/|title='White Noise' Producer Uri Singer Acquires Rights To Don DeLillo's 'The Silence'|first1=Amanda|last1=N'Duka|date=February 24, 2021|access-date=March 17, 2022}}</ref>

The first [[Library of America]] volume of DeLillo's writings was published in October 2022. The volume, titled ''Don DeLillo: Three Novels of the 1980s'', collects the three major works DeLillo published during the decade: ''[[The Names (novel)|The Names]]'' (1982), ''White Noise'' (1985), and ''Libra'' (1988). The volume also features two nonfiction essays by DeLillo: "American Blood", about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and [[Jack Ruby]], and "Silhouette City", about [[neo-Nazism|neo-Nazis]] in contemporary America. It was edited by the DeLillo scholar Mark Osteen.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Don DeLillo: Three Novels of the 1980s {{!}} Library of America |url=https://www.loa.org/books/722-three-novels-of-the-1980s |access-date=April 4, 2023 |website=www.loa.org}}</ref> ''Mao II'' and ''Underworld'' were anthologized in 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Forthcoming: Fall 2023 {{!}} Library of America |url=https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/2043-forthcoming-fall-2023 |access-date=April 4, 2023 |website=www.loa.org |language=en-US}}</ref> He is one of a handful of authors so anthologized while alive; others include [[Eudora Welty]], [[Philip Roth]] and [[Ursula K. Le Guin]].

DeLillo lives near New York City in the suburb of [[Bronxville, New York|Bronxville]] with his wife, Barbara Bennett.<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk">{{cite news|first=Ed |last=Caesar |title=Don DeLillo: A writer like no other |url= https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/don-delillo-a-writer-like-no-other-rdsg66wdj67|work=The Sunday Times |date=February 21, 2010 |access-date=August 20, 2010 |location=London}}</ref>