Published American Book Author since 1991.
Born in Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Education: Scholarship Graduate from the University of Iowa & State University of New York.
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AUTHOR MARTIN TARAGANO
Martin Taragano ("Tara-ga-no") is a highly accomplished author with a diverse body of work. Mr. Taragano is an award-nominated literary/upmarket novelist and multiple creative writing, fellowship-winning short story writer, novelist, poet, biographer, essayist, belletrist, journalist, book reviewer, literary and film critic, sportswriter, NBA guru, statistician, and professional basketball (NBA/WNBA/ABA) reference book author. His newest books are THE HUMAN OVEN, an upmarket, award-nominated novel, and two brand new NBA encyclopedias, as well as the suspense thriller novel RUNAWAY TANK (please see below for more about his new titles). Mr. Taragano wrote the major revision and final draft of THE HUMAN OVEN while living in a small town in New England after writing previous novel manuscript drafts in New York and Florida. THE HUMAN OVEN is an existentialist parable and whodunit of survival literature spiced with terror and tragedy.
While engaged in a grueling, creative writing autodidactic apprenticeship​ working 17 hours a day for a quarter of a century to learn how to write traditionally publishable caliber novels and poetry, Mr. Taragano worked for almost ten years as a sports writing journalist for Listen magazine publishing dozens of celebrity profiles for feature cover articles for the periodical. During that time his first two traditionally published nonfiction books received national critical acclaim.
After graduating the University of Iowa with his degree in creative writing he never felt that a formal academic masters was the right fit for him, so he pursued and obtained his advanced andragogy autodidactically with an MFA in creative writing and an MA in comparative literature. Mr. Taragano finds it impossible to write in complete silence, so he always listens to loud TV while simultaneously writing his books and poetry as that's how he concentrates best.
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Mr. Taragano grew up in New York City (Bronx) and upstate New York (Rockland County). He was the first of two children to Goodwin Taragano and Helene Toledo. Born in Manhattan, NY, as a young child, he spent nearly a year in a leg cast and foot brace due to severe clubfoot. His parents divorced when he was two. At age three he suffered from amblyopia ("lazy eye") and had to wear eye patches every hour he was awake. Mr. Taragano skipped the second and third grades and graduated high school and entered college at 16. His father was a New York city restaurateur/entrepreneur, and his mother worked as a Manhattan secretary after growing up on a 1200-acre chicken farm in Pennsylvania.
Martin Taragano was the first member of his immediate family who had the opportunity to receive two university degrees. Mr. Taragano's first cousin once removed was American singer and Broadway and TV star Eydie Gorme'. He grew up in a home without books but his love of reading the gorgeous written word evolved and grew intense once he reached his late teens. Just after graduating high school Mr. Taragano had his first national publication in Sports Illustrated, eleven years before he officially started his professional authorship career.
Back then, in 1978, Mr. Taragano was so jeweled with literary naiveté that he knew absolutely nothing about the contemporary American publishing industry and had yet to start studying creative writing. Mr. Taragano didn't even know Sports Illustrated was considered a major, top tier national periodical or that magazine senior acquisition editors actually paid authors for their work! He now writes his novels, poetry and NBA encyclopedias from his New England authorship office less than thirty minutes away from novelists Stephen King's and Dan Brown's writing offices.
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Mr. Taragano characterizes himself as "a painfully introverted individual who is extremely private." He embraces solitude and "has enjoyed being virtually a recluse since the age of 19." He is
"most fulfilled living authentically as me with a definite preference for social isolation...Being a hermit is what I enjoy most... What moves me to write fiction and poetry is my own pain and hurt. If a subject has immense emotional impact, I want to write about it." He never married nor had any children. ​Mr. Taragano's historical ancestral provenance is from Southern Europe's Mediterranean basin however there is no ​Italian heritage in his family tree despite the "ano" suffix in his surname.
His paternal and maternal great-great grandparents' roots sprang from Hungary, Istanbul and Izmir (Smyrna) Turkey, Salonika (Thessaloniki) Greece and Toledo and Tarragona, Spain where his
ancestors' plucked apricots and figs before immigrating to fin de siècle America.
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Both before and after graduating from the University of Iowa, Martin Taragano continued his
authorship career writing many novels and traditionally publishing over 220 periodical pieces including poems, investigative journalism features, short stories, book reviews, literature and film criticism, biographies, profiles, essays, sports writing and contributed myriad magazine feature cover articles for many national periodicals, literary quarterlies and journals.
Mr. Taragano has spoken at many organizations and has traditionally published two critically acclaimed NBA encyclopedias both of which received Publishers Weekly starred reviews.
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​ Mr. Taragano is fundamentally an autodidactic fictionist, nonfiction writer, poet, and author. While he received advanced formal training in creative writing under the mentorship of his Iowa professors, he had already traditionally published many times before matriculating into the
University of Iowa in 1997.
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​ BOOKS (Fiction)
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Martin Taragano has written two new novels. Look for them soon! His two novels are THE HUMAN OVEN and RUNAWAY TANK. THE HUMAN OVEN is upmarket fiction while RUNAWAY TANK is a suspense thriller.​
By an undeserved stroke of fortune Martin Taragano's new 123,000-word upmarket novel THE HUMAN OVEN was shortlisted (a finalist) for the 2002 Associated Writing Programs/Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's Press) Best Novel Award. A worthier voice than Mr. Taragano's summed up this manuscript by stating, "It's a shatteringly powerful novel of immense emotional impact about the blizzard inside and outside every human being." That was Mr. Taragano's editor speaking.
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THE HUMAN OVEN is about a brutalized married couple who must face a sinister secret that if revealed will destroy them even worse than if they die in the threatening climatological disaster mauling them. THE HUMAN OVEN's narrative unfolds as a crippled wife and world-famous poet is forced to confront her traumatizing abuse while trying to prevent her blind daughter from the same abuse during the deadliest blizzard in world history.​
The title THE HUMAN OVEN is both literal and metaphorical. Metaphorically it represents the theme of the destructive nature of human existence in the novel. The oven symbolizes damage and harm in both the domestic sphere and in the world.
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​ Mr. Taragano also authored the high action suspense thriller novel RUNAWAY TANK.
This thriller is a dangerous cat and mouse hunt between a detective on the verge of a nervous breakdown and a deranged maniac who steals an M1 battle tank from a California armory.​ In RUNAWAY TANK LA detective Dave Brady must race against time to save the lives of three terrified hostages that sadistic serial killer Stone Striker holds captive inside an unstoppable and impenetrable runaway tank.
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In RUNAWAY TANK, Striker uses his tank to terrorize and assault Los Angeles as he goes berserk in a frenzied rush of violence, crushing and destroying everything in sight on his murderous rampage. Striker demands $100 million to set his victims free. Will Los Angeles pay up? What if they don't? Or can't?
Three frightened hostages are locked inside Striker's tank. This madman must be stopped.... But how do you stop a runaway tank? You can't destroy it! You can't blow it up! You can't block it! You can't move it!
Detective Dave Brady must act now! He has no time to waste! Three innocent hostages might die!... How will Brady stop Striker?
Look for the edge of your seat excitement that only RUNAWAY TANK can deliver -- wherever you buy books very soon...
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BOOKS (Nonfiction)
Martin Taragano has four new nonfiction books coming out wherever books are sold.
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Martin Taragano's two new NBA books are BASKETBALL'S MVP ENCYCLOPEDIA and BASKETBALL'S GREATEST SCORERS. Mr. Taragano is an internationally recognized pro basketball scholar, NBA statistical analyst, and expert NBA historian.
Mr. Taragano is also working on a brand-new nonfiction volume on the world's most popular professional athlete -- the WNBA's Caitlin Clark. Clark won the 2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year Award. Look for it soon!
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Martin Taragano's new Major League Baseball biography on MLB Hall of Famer, All Star, and MVP Frank Robinson is coming soon. Entitled THE JUDGE: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE & TURBULENT TIMES of FRANK ROBINSON this narrative nonfiction titles spans Robinson's 50+ year MLB career as a superstar player, manager, front office executive and his profound racial struggles as one of baseball's all-time greatest home run hitters, Triple Crown winners and MVPs.
Two of Mr. Taragano's previous NBA books available are BASKETBALL BIOGRAPHIES (a centennial anniversary biographical encyclopedia) and PRO BASKETBALL STATISTICS (an exhaustive hoops stats encyclopedia) wherever you buy your books.
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Publishers Weekly reviewed Martin Taragano's NBA book BASKETBALL BIOGRAPHIES with critical acclaim saying it was "The most fascinating and authoritative NBA volume I've ever read. There is nothing else like this in the contemporary marketplace. It will be just as popular as any competitors."​​​
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CREATIVE WRITING CREDENTIALS
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Mr. Taragano is a multiple creative writing Fellowship & grant recipient. Among Mr. Taragano's writing honors, he has received a Bennington University Fellowship, a Wesleyan University Writer's Workshop Fellowship, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and a Provincetown Fine Arts Center Fellowship all for THE HUMAN OVEN novel. He was accepted to Columbia University's creative writing program but choose to be a scholarship graduate at the University of Iowa's creative writing program.
Martin Taragano has won Writer-in-Residence honors at the European Writing Program at Chateau de Lesvault in Onlay, France, The New York State Writer's Institute at Skidmore College, The Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony, and The Cumberland Valley Fiction Workshop at Dickinson College all for THE HUMAN OVEN novel.
Mr. Taragano's essays, poetry, short stories and feature magazine cover articles have been published in many national periodicals including Sports Illustrated, Chic, The South Carolina Review, Travel Review, Listen, and The Avocet, and many other literary quarterlies.
He has also received multiple creative writing grants from PEN American, The Carnegie Fund, The Authors Guild, and The American Society of Journalists and Authors.
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MORE ABOUT MARTIN TARAGANO​
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Mr. Taragano is a film scholar who immensely enjoys classic cinema -- especially 1950s-1960s Hitchcock films, as well as Scorsese, Kazan, Kubrick, Kramer, Wilder, Fellini and Woody Allen films. Mr. Taragano's top ten most favorite films of cinema's golden era are A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Cool Hand Luke (1967), La Strada (1954), Bicycle Thieves (1948), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Lost Weekend (1945), The Godfather (1972), and the pre-code crime tragedy I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932). Goodfellas (1990) is also on Mr. Taragano's list.
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If you're having a bad day, try watching one of these magnificent films to cheer you up.
The virtuosic American dramas The Defiant Ones (1958), Schindler's List (1993), the haunting One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Hard Times (1975), the riveting action thriller The Mechanic (1972), The Exorcist (1973), Scarface (1983), Cat on A Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Deer Hunter (1978), the mesmerizing Psycho (1960), and the devastating The Pawnbroker (1964) are twelve "must-see" films on cinephile Martin Taragano's all-time cinematic honorable mention list. Mr. Taragano is finishing a brand-new film volume on the 50 essential movies to see before you die.
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Martin Taragano enjoys The Beatles, Elvis, CCR, any song by Alecia Beth Hart Moore (aka "Pink"), Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE (Adele), and Bob Dylan the only singer/songwriter ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mr. Taragano continues to enjoy collecting great works of fictional, poetic, screen and nonfiction literature for his ever-expanding creative writing library.
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If you're having lots of stress, feeling depressed or fearful, or are feeling overwhelming pain and suffering with any serious problem, instead of using drugs or guzzling alcohol, try listening to one of these phenomenal songs. This music on Martin Taragano's list below will give you a joyous cry and will make you feel better instantly.
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Some of Martin Taragano's most emotionally powerful ballads and favorite nonclassical songs musical geniuses have ever written that Mr. Taragano has ever heard are Kris Kristofferson's, "Help Me Make It Through the Night" (1970) recorded by Sammi Smith, "A Love So Beautiful" by Michael Bolton, "Years" (1979)" by Barbara Mandrell, "Angie" (1973) covered by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, "Love on the Brain" (2016) by Rihanna, "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (1975) by Willie Nelson, "Unchained Melody" (1965) by The Righteous Brothers, "When A Man Loves A Woman" (1966) by Percy Sledge, "Norwegian Wood (This Bird has Flown, 1965), "Something," "Yesterday," "Eleanor Rigby," by The Beatles, "Across the Universe," also by The Beatles, Coldplay's "Yellow" (2000), Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" (2006), Nilsson's & Mariah Carey's "Without You " (1971 & 1993), Hoobastank's "The Reason," (2003), Pink's "Perfect," Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," and Joe Cocker's harrowing and stunningly soulful, raw, raspy vocals on "I Shall be Released" (1969). Also, anything by CCR (everything is virtuosic) and most anything from Three Dog Night including "Try A Little Tenderness," "One," and "Never Been to Spain."
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If you don't cry when listening to any of these songs, you're not human. With themes of loneliness, heartbreak, regret and longing these profoundly moving songs possess raw emotions of sorrow, sadness, suffering, vulnerability and human pain that evoke a joyous cry. These songs will kill the pain inside you and make you happy.​​
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Mr. Taragano first started his diverse and accomplished authorship career in 1990. His nonfiction reading centers on classic cinema, renaissance sculpture and painting, psychiatry, pop and rock music, clinical nutrition, abnormal psychology and the NBA. His long fiction reading primarily focuses on the 20th century Nobel Literature Laureates.
Mr. Taragano's interest in drama includes the 20th century's most philosophically and psychologically profound playwrights including T. Williams, A. Miller, E. Albee, R. Anderson and E. O'Neill. Mr. Taragano admits he learned ten times more on how to write emotionally powerful fiction by reading and viewing the plays of America's greatest dramatists than he ever did from reading the world's greatest novels.
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Mr. Taragano's passion for verse has been exhaustive and must include the poetic oeuvres of G. Mistral, Mauriac, Milosz, Bunin, Karlfeldt, Yeats, S.J. Perse, Spitteler, V.V. Heidenstam, Tagore, P.J. Ludwig Von Heyse, Elytis, Martinson, Montale, Carducci, F. Mistral, Aleixandre, Bjornson, Seifert, Prudhomme, Jimenez, Neruda, Sachs and Seferis.
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Before Martin Taragano received advanced erudition in nutritional science and dietetics, he once owned and operated a hot dog food truck which was as he describes as "A truly eye-opening experience on the profound health concerns of American society as I encountered some of the most bizarre and dangerous gastronomical preferences of my life."
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Martin Taragano also worked during the graveyard shifts as a master pastry chef working 12 hours a day seven days a week in pastry shops in the northeast. Then as a young man jeweled with naiveté, his passion for fine automobiles led him to a position as a Cadillac, Corvette and DeLorean motorcar technician at a New York-based, mafia-owned car dealership in the 1980s. Mr. Taragano says of that experience, "In between twisting wrenches on some of the world's most expensive and exotic American automobiles, I trembled with the fear of being in debt to a loan shark."
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Mr. Taragano has loved fine automobiles since he was a lad. His personal dream garage houses an air-cooled 2002 Porsche 911, a 2013 Mercedes S550 4MATIC, a 2015 Mercedes GL 550 4MATIC, a 1980 C3 Corvette, a 2017 Cadillac Escalade Platinum, a 2018 BMW 750i xDrive, and a 1985 Ferrari 308 GTB -- all black.
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Some of the better suited careers Martin Taragano had in his adult life while establishing his authorship career were personal fitness trainer, clinical nutritionist, librarian, research assistant, resume writer, and co-owner and general manager of a large 255-seat vegetarian and vegan-cuisine restaurant in New Jersey.
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Mr. Taragano has always enjoyed gaining advanced scholarship in diverse professions.​​
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Mr. Taragano believes that the absolute worst savagery that could happen to a human being other than death is not financial impoverishment, not homelessness, not hunger, not sickness, not excruciating physical and mental pain, not attempting self-slaughter, not lack of love, not even abuse -- but losing one's freedom.
Martin Taragano intentionally lost his freedom to be able to perform firsthand, extensive research on losing one's freedom. He plans on authoring a new literary novel on the incapacitating pain and barbaric mental depression human beings suffer vis-a-vis losing their freedom entitled, THE BLUE GUILLOTINE, about this very subject soon.
Mr. Taragano plans to utilize his erudition by going on Jeopardy in the near future. Please wish him luck.​
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BOOKS​
Novels: The Human Oven; Runaway Tank; Running with Mr. Search for Love
Nonfiction: Basketball Biographies; Pro Basketball Statistics
Forthcoming Books: The Human Oven; Runaway Tank; Basketball's Greatest Scorers; Basketball's MVP Encyclopedia; Caitlin Clark Jumbo Fan Book; The Judge: The Extraordinary Life & Turbulent Times of Frank Robinson (Major League Baseball Biography).
Official Website of Martin Taragano
Martin Taragano is a highly accomplished American author with a diverse body of work. He was born in Manhattan, New York, and is a scholarship graduate from the University of Iowa where he trained under the mentorship of his professors in their creative writing program. His 34-year authorship career spans multiple genres, including the novel, poetry, screenwriting, journalism, biography, statistics, sports writing, essays, and short stories.
THE HUMAN OVEN
Martin Taragano
American literary novelist Martin Taragano's brand new, upmarket novel THE HUMAN OVEN is the story of the devastating and destructive blizzard outside and inside every human being. His philosophical and psychologically penetrating novel is an emotionally moving volume of terrifying power. It's meant to be read and enjoyed by all of his many old and new readers.
