The archive of San Francisco literary great Dave Eggers has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Dave Eggers’s archive is a record of creative engagement with the world,” Stephen Enniss, director of the Harry Ransom Center, said in a statement. “With this acquisition we celebrate his gifts as a writer and his commitment — so well documented in his papers — to a more abundant, engaged, and humane world.”
Eggers’ archive includes 51 large bins of articles, artwork, photographs and more that helped shape him into the author he is today. The collection arrived at the Ransom Center over the summer and will be made available for students and researchers once processing is finalized.
Over the course of his career, Eggers has written or edited dozens of books, including “The Circle” (2013), which was adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson in 2017. The Boston native was raised in Chicago and relocated to the Bay Area in the early 1990s, first moving to Berkeley and then San Francisco. He has since given back to the city that embraced him with a number of nonprofit programs.
In 2002, he cofounded the nonprofit writing and tutoring center 826 Valencia in San Francisco. Its success inspired 60 similar centers around the world, all united under the International Alliance of Youth Writing Centers. Last year, Eggers deepened his investment in San Francisco’s literary community with the International Library of Young Authors, which is dedicated to the work of student authors.
Other Eggers nonprofit endeavors include ScholarMatch, which helps first-generation college students navigate higher education and beyond; Voice of Witness, a book and video series that focuses on human rights crises; and Art + Water, a free graduate-level art instruction program. The latter is set to open in San Francisco later this year.
His collection at the Ransom Center joins the McSweeney’s records and those of several other notable 21st century authors already housed there.