Daphne Miriam Merkin (born in New York City) is an American literary critic, essayist and novelist. Merkin is a graduate of Barnard College and also attended Columbia University‘s graduate program in English literature.[1]

She began her career as a book critic for the magazines Commentary,[1] The New Republic, and The New Leader, where she wrote a book column and later, a movie column.[1] In 1986, she became an editor with the publishing house of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. In 1997, after Tina Brown became editor of The New Yorker, Merkin became a film critic for the magazine. She also wrote extensively on books and became known for her frank forays into autobiography; her personal essays dealt with subjects ranging from her battle with depression, to her predilection for spanking,[2] to the unacknowledged complexities of growing up rich on Park Avenue. In 2005, she joined The New York Times Magazine as a contributing writer. She is the author of a novel, Enchantment (1984)[1] as well as two collections of essays, Dreaming of Hitler (1997)[3] and The Fame Lunches (2014).[4] and a memoir, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression (2017).[5]. Her latest novel 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love (2020)[6] came out in July of 2020.

Books in order of publication:

Enchantment1986
Dreaming of Hitler1997
The Fame Lunches: On Sadness, Writing, the Promise of Fame, and Other Imperfections2014
This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression2017
22 Minutes of Unconditional Love2020