New York names Lethem among most influential in books

New York magazine has named author Jonathan Lethem as one of "The Influentials" -- 200 people "whose ideas, power and sheer will are changing New York." Lethem, whose book The Fortress of Solitude contains numerous classic comic-book references, is set to revive Omega the Unknown for Marvel Comics later this year.

However, New York concerns itself with Lethem's prose work:

Brooklyn writers crop up like weeds these days, but no one is as deeply rooted to the borough as Lethem. A few years back, when “literary” was synonymous with “domestic,” Lethem’s fiction, like that of many Brooklynites after him, roughed up the careful polish of M.F.A. grads with the exuberance of the autodidact. His forays into sci-fi, fantasy, noir, and comics popularized the idea that a genre book could be literature. His work has meanwhile circled back to the once-downtrodden block he grew up on. Now that Heath and Michelle have moved there (Dean Street, to be exact), the writer who rediscovered Brooklyn as a creative muse is at the center of the boom.

Some of Lethem's comic-centric essays can be found on the Random House minisite for The Fortress of Solitude.