Benjamin

Hedin

Writer

Filmmaker

Grammy & Emmy

Nominee

film

ARTICLES

Remembering Robert Moses

The American Scholar

Testimonial

  • “It's impossible not to fall under the spell of this aptly titled novel. I started it compulsively, cleverly lured into thinking I was reading one kind of novel—dangling the revelation of a sensationally secret adulterous affair, beyond the grave—only to realize that I was reading quite a different book: the slower revelation of a relationship more messy and formless and uncharted than I had previously expected. And as the narrative taught me how to slow down (though it never loosens its grip), so I began to admire its richness and the subtlety of its lean but eloquent prose.”

    James Wood

  • "In Search of the Movement is a true marvel. Benjamin Hedin’s insightful combination of reportage and history of the civil rights movement allows us to see the era with fresh eyes. By tracing the continued legacy of the black freedom struggle from the 1960s to the present, this gem of a book wonderfully illuminates how the movement is living and thriving in our own time."

    Peniel Joseph

  • "This novel about a grieving woman who has suddenly lost her husband in a car wreck is a brilliant story that could also be a song. It’s set in the Northwest but could be set in Arkansas. It’s filled with interesting characters and haunting mystery. From page to page, you follow her as she experiences a dark comedy of strange and unsettling emotions that deaths and funerals have a way of bringing out of the people who are left behind. Like the best writers, Ben knows his way around the written word. And like the best stories, Under The Spell is at once contemporary and timeless."

    Lucinda Williams

  • "The most absorbing, wide-ranging and stimulating body of writing about the mighty Bob that's ever been assembled."

    Salman Rushdie on Studio A

  • "A novel that is both a terrific page-turner and a very moving depiction of grief; it really did have me under its spell."

    Roddy Doyle, author of Love: A Novel

  • "Fusing the personal with the political, the present with the past, Benjamin Hedin has written a sober, touching elegy for our shared history. In Search of the Movement is needed and essential, and it could not have come at a better time."

    Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, author, Brief Encounters With the Enemy and When Skateboards Will Be Free