Jarett Kobek
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Jarett Kobek | |
|---|---|
| Add a Photo | |
| Occupation | Author |
| Years active | 2015–present |
Notable work | I Hate the Internet |
Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer based in California, best known for the 2016 novel I Hate the Internet and for research‑driven experimental non-fiction about contemporary culture, including works on the Zodiac Killer murders, film, games, and popular music. [1][2][3] In September 2025, he and writer Richard Byrne located archival documents revealing the plaintext of the long-unsolved fourth passage of the CIA’s Kryptos sculpture. [4][5]
Career
Kobek's first novel, ATTA, a fictionalised "psychedelic biography" of the 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, was published in 2011 by Semiotext(e).[6] The book was described in BOMB magazine as a provocative attempt to inhabit Atta's perspective, and has been discussed in academic literature as "one of the first texts responding directly to the global effects of 9/11." [7][8]
Kobek's novel I Hate the Internet was initially self-published in the USA in 2015 and then published in Britain in 2016 by Serpent's Tail. It attracted widespread critical attention and received generally positive reviews for its satirical critique of social media, gentrification, and online misogyny. Writing in the New York Times, journalist Dwight Garner described the book as "a grainy political and cultural rant, a sustained shriek about power and morality in a new global era." [9]
A follow up novel, The Future Won't Be Long, was published in 2018 by Penguin Random House in the United States and Serpent's Tail in the UK. [10] The novel received mixed reviews, with some critics praising its realistic portrayal of New York’s downtown art and club scenes in the late twentieth century, while others criticised it as "desperate to be cool, and failing." [11][12]
In 2019, Kobek returned to some of the same characters and concerns of his earlier work in the satirical novel Only Americans Burn in Hell, published by We Heard You Like Books in the US and by Serpent's Tail in the UK. Reviews focused on its attacks on internet oligarchs, American presidential politics, and contemporary liberal culture. [13] [14] [15]
In 2022, Kobek published two non-fiction books presenting research about the Zodiac Killer: Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt for the Zodiac and How to Find Zodiac. The books examine the cultural history of the case and put forth Paul Doerr as a potential suspect. The theory attracted media interest but no official resolution. [3] [16]
Kobek has also written other shorter non-fiction works, including Soft & Cuddly (2017), a study of the ZX Spectrum horror game Soft & Cuddly in the Boss Fight Books series, Do Every Thing Wrong!: XXXTentacion Against the World (2018), a book about the late rapper XXXTentacion and his reception in the music industry and online culture, and Invocation of My Demon Brother (2025), a book-length analysis of Kenneth Anger’s 1969 film. Critical commentary on these works discusses their engagement with technology, media, and subcultural history, with one academic review describing Soft & Cuddly as a notable contribution to neoliberalism and information culture. [17][18][19][20][21]
Attitude to publishing in USA and We Heard You Like Books
Kobek has been vocal about problems he sees with the state of the US publishing industry. His views on this led him to found the small press We Heard You Like Books. In addition to publishing Kobek's own books, the press published works by the artist William E. Jones and British author Iain Sinclair. [22][23]
Interviewed by Carole Cadwalladr in 2016 Kobek expressed his view that most US authors are middle-class: "If you see the literary novels that have been coming out even in the last two or three years, very few of them have much of a connection to anything now ... have they [the leading publishing houses] published even a single working-class writer? I can’t think of one."[1]
Kryptos K4 Discovery
In September 2025, Kobek and writer Richard Byrne discovered documents in Jim Sanborn’s papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art that, when assembled, revealed the full plaintext of the long-unsolved fourth passage (K4) of the CIA cipher sculpture Kryptos. Kobek had studied Kryptos K4 and Sanborn’s wider body of work for several years prior to the discovery. Sanborn confirmed the accuracy of the plaintext and subsequently asked the Smithsonian to seal the relevant files until 2075. The discovery and its aftermath, including requests for nondisclosure and reported legal threats, were covered by major media outlets.[4][5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cadwalladr, Carole (20 November 2016). "Jarett Kobek: 'The internet has been enormously detrimental to society'". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ "Jarett Kobek". Frieze. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Gell, Aaron (21 September 2022). "Has the Zodiac Killer Mystery Been Solved (Again)?". Los Angeles Magazine. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Schwartz, John (16 October 2025). "A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian's Vault". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Greenberg, Andy (23 October 2025). "Inside the Messy, Accidental Kryptos Reveal". Wired. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ "ATTA". Semiotext(e). Semiotext(e). 5 August 2011. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ "Jarett Kobek's Portrait of a Hijacker". BOMB Magazine. 8 March 2012.
- ↑ Bönisch, Dana (January 2015). "Geopoetics of Terror(ism): Spatiality and Visuality in Two 'Post-9/11' Novels". Forum for Modern Language Studies. 51 (1): 15–26. doi:10.1093/fmls/cqu066.
- ↑ Garner, Dwight (November 5, 2016). "When the Digital World Is Judging Your Every Thought". The New York Times.
- ↑ "The Future Won't Be Long". Penguin Random House.
- ↑ "Fiction Book Review: The Future Won't Be Long by Jarett Kobek". Publishers Weekly. 26 June 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ Ravinthiran, Vidyan (10 December 2017). "Desperate to Be Cool, and Failing – The Future Won't Be Long by Jarett Kobek, review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
- ↑ Barkan, Ross (13 November 2019). "God Help Me". The Baffler.
- ↑ Wojturska, Rebecca (7 April 2019). "Only Americans Burn in Hell by Jarett Kobek". The Skinny.
- ↑ Graham, Jane (25 April 2019). "Only Americans, Jarett Kobek; One Hundred Miracles, Zuzana Růžičková". The Big Issue.
- ↑ Anguiano, Dani (1 October 2022). "'It's not an unsolvable case': has the Zodiac killer finally been found?". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 December 2025.
- ↑ "Soft & Cuddly by Jarett Kobek". Boss Fight Books. 24 January 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2026.
- ↑ Guerrero, Jose Cruz (2019). "Review of Soft & Cuddly by Jarett Kobek". Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies. 2 (1). Retrieved 3 April 2026.
- ↑ "Do Every Thing Wrong!: XXXTentacion Against The World by Jarett Kobek". Triumph of the Now. 5 March 2023. Retrieved 3 April 2026.
- ↑ "Invocation of My Demon Brother by Jarett Kobek". DieDieBooks. 5 September 2022. Retrieved 3 April 2026.
- ↑ Collins, Chad. "DieDieBooks' Latest 'Invocation of My Demon Brother' Is an Astounding, Sad Queer Odyssey of Murder and Art". Dread Central. Retrieved 3 April 2026.
- ↑ Gross, Anisse (20 May 2016). "L.A.-Based Indie Press Scores with First Title". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 23 December 2025.
- ↑ "We Heard You Like Books".
External links
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