Robert Kirsch
American literary critic and author
Robert R. Kirsch (October 18, 1922 – August 16, 1980) was an American literary critic and author. He was the literary editor of The Los Angeles Times for more than two decades.
Early life
Robert R. Kirsch was born on October 18, 1922, on Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York City. He moved out of Coney Island at the age of 17. He had two sons, Paul Kirsch, and Jonathan Kirsch, who is a renowned lawyer. He also later had a daughter named Maria Kirsch in his second marriage.
Career
Kirsch joined The Los Angeles Times, where he was the literary editor for 23 years. Over the course of his career, he wrote "thousands of columns, book reviews, and essays." He was one of the first critics to praise the works of Joseph Wambaugh and Tom Sanchez.
Kirsch authored several books about California and Las Vegas. He used the pennames of Robert Dundee and Robert Bancroft.
“Robert Kirsch” enters the record as american literary critic and author. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Kirsch and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q54859924. VIAF identifies the subject as 40648415. The Library of Congress control number is n79056725. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922 and 1980.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Kirsch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.