Stanley Kunitz was born in New York City in 1908 and spent his early years in a noisy tenement in the Bronx. He was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants and spoke Yiddish at home with his parents and at school with his friends. His father, a tailor, worked long hours in his shop, but he also read books to his children, including novels by Tolstoy. At age fifteen, Kunitz became a copy boy for the "New York American" newspaper and later went into the business that would become his life's work: book publishing
Read more
His wife, Betty, is an author and educator who has been called "a major influence on the literary scene of this country" (San Francisco Chronicle). They live in Greenwich Village and enjoy traveling and visiting museums and other cultural institutions.