Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, "Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)

New Books in Popular Culture · Dec 27, 2025 · 1h 1m

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today, I speak with Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of the new artist’s biography Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025). The book was recently named one of NPR’s Books We Loved for 2025. Pollack-Pelzner is a cultural historian, theater critic, and teacher at Portland State University, whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times.

Pollack-Pelzner’s biography offers a captivating exploration of Miranda’s artistic journey—from a sensitive child in Manhattan’s…