Topic: Conrad Aiken

Conrad Potter Aiken (5 August 1889 – 17 August 1973) was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, and an autobiography.

Aiken was born in Savannah, Georgia. When Aiken was eleven years of age, his physician father killed his mother, then himself. According to his own writings, Aiken found the bodies of his parents. He was raised by his great-great-aunt in Massachusetts. Aiken was educated at private schools and at Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, then at Harvard University where he edited the Advocate with T. S. Eliot who became a lifelong friend and associate.

Aiken's earliest poetry was written partly under the influence of a beloved teacher, the philosopher George Santayana. This relation shaped Aiken as a poet who was deeply musical in his approach and, at the same time, philosophical in seeking answers to his own problems and the problems of the modern world.