Obama appoints controversial novelist to Holocaust Memorial Council

President Obama on Friday announced the appointment of controversial novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, known for his bestseller Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, to the Holocaust Memorial Council.

Foer was born in Washington, D.C. and teaches in the graduate creative writing program at New York University. His mother is the child of Holocaust survivors. His brother, Franklin Foer, is the editor of The New Republic.

His book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was adapted into a Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks. The novel, which is set against the backdrop of the Sept. 11 attacks, was criticized for his writing technique and for his use of modern literary devices. 

Foer used "visual writing," which consists of plot devices like interconnected stories, pictures within the book and other oddities. A New York Times review said the novel was "irritating" and "as a whole feels simultaneously contrived and improvisatory, schematic and haphazard."

Foer, 35, achieved literary fame with his first book, Everything is Illuminated. That tome, which focused on the Holocaust, received the National Jewish Book Award and the Guardian First Book Award.