Tobias Wolff
Encyclopedia
Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff (born June 19, 1945) is an American
author
. He is known for his memoir
s, particularly This Boy's Life
(1989), and his short stories
. He has also written two novel
s.
, Alabama
. After attending Concrete High School in Concrete, Washington
, Wolff applied to, and was accepted by, The Hill School
under the self-embellished name Tobias Jonathan von Ansell-Wolff, III. He was later expelled. He served in the US Army during the Vietnam War
era. He holds a First Class Honours degree in English from Hertford College, Oxford
(1972) and an M.A.
from Stanford University
. In 1975 he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford.
Wolff is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University
, where he has taught classes in English and creative writing
since 1997. He also served as the director of the Creative Writing
Program at Stanford from 2000 to 2002.
Prior to his current appointment at Stanford, Wolff taught at Syracuse University
from 1980 to 1997. While at Syracuse he served on the faculty with Raymond Carver
and was an instructor in the graduate writing program. Authors who worked with Wolff while they were students at Syracuse include Jay McInerney
, Tom Perrotta
, George Saunders
, Alice Sebold
, William Tester
, Paul Griner, Ken Garcia, and Paul Watkins
.
and the memoir
. His first short story collection, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, was published in 1981. The collection was well received and several of its stories have since reappeared in a number of anthologies. Its publication coincided with a period in which several American authors who worked almost exclusively in the short story form were receiving wider recognition. As writers like Wolff, Raymond Carver
, and Andre Dubus
became better known, many proclaimed that the United States was in the midst of a renaissance of the short story. (The 20th-century North American version of realism these writers used was often glibly labelled Dirty realism
).
Wolff, however, repudiates such claims. In 1994, in the introduction to The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, he wrote,
Wolff's 1984 novella
The Barracks Thief
won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
for 1985. Most of the action takes place at Fort Bragg
, North Carolina
, where three recent paratrooper
training graduates are temporarily attached to an airborne
infantry
company as they await orders to report to Vietnam
. Because most of the men in the company fought together in Vietnam, the three newcomers are treated as outsiders and ignored. When money and personal property are discovered missing from the barracks, suspicion falls on the three newcomers. The narrative structure of the book contains several shifts of tone and point of view
as the story unfolds.
In 1985, Wolff's second short story collection, Back in the World was published. Several of the stories in this collection, such as "The Missing Person," are significantly longer than the stories in his first collection.
Wolff chronicled his early life in two memoirs. This Boy's Life
(1989) concerns itself with the author's adolescence in Seattle
and then Newhalem
, a remote company
town in the North Cascade mountains
of Washington State. The memoir describes the nomadic and uncertain life Wolff and his mother experienced after the divorce of Wolff's parents and then his mother's subsequent marriage to an abusive husband and stepfather. In Pharaoh's Army
(1994) records Wolff's U.S. Army tour of duty in Vietnam
. A third collection of stories, The Night in Question, was published in 1997. Our Story Begins, a collection of new and previously-published stories, appeared in 2008.
Whether he is writing fiction or non-fiction, Wolff's prose is characterized by an exploration of personal/biographical and existential
terrain. As Wyatt Mason wrote in the London Review of Books
, "Typically, his protagonists face an acute moral dilemma, unable to reconcile what they know to be true with what they feel to be true. Duplicity is their great failing, and Wolff's main theme."
In 1989, Wolff was chosen as recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story
. Wolff has received the O. Henry Award
on three occasions, for the stories "In the Garden of North American Martyrs" (1981), "Next Door" (1982), and "Sister" (1985). On March 4, 2009, he was awarded The Story Prize
for Our Story Begins.
became a feature film directed by Michael Caton-Jones
which starred Leonardo DiCaprio
, Robert De Niro
, and Ellen Barkin
.
In 2001, Wolff's acclaimed short story "Bullet in the Brain" was adapted into a short film by David Von Ancken and CJ Follini
starring Tom Noonan
and Dean Winters
.
professor Geoffrey Wolff
. A decade before Wolff wrote This Boy's Life
, Geoffrey wrote a memoir of his own about the boys' biological father, entitled The Duke of Deception.
Wolff's mother, having settled in Washington, D.C.
, eventually became President of the League of Women Voters
.
Tobias Wolff is married and has three children.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. He is known for his memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s, particularly This Boy's Life
This Boy's Life
This Boy's Life is a memoir by Tobias Wolff first published in 1989. It describes the author's adolescence as he wanders the continental United States with his itinerant mother. The first leg of their journey takes them from Florida to Utah, where Mom, fleeing an abusive partner, hopes to get rich...
(1989), and his short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
. He has also written two novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s.
Biography
Wolff was born in 1945 in BirminghamBirmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. After attending Concrete High School in Concrete, Washington
Concrete, Washington
Concrete is a town in north-central Skagit County, Washington, United States. The population was 705 at the 2010 census. The town of Concrete is included in the Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Early history:...
, Wolff applied to, and was accepted by, The Hill School
The Hill School
The Hill School is a preparatory boarding school for boys and girls located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia....
under the self-embellished name Tobias Jonathan von Ansell-Wolff, III. He was later expelled. He served in the US Army during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
era. He holds a First Class Honours degree in English from Hertford College, Oxford
Hertford College, Oxford
Hertford College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is located in Catte Street, directly opposite the main entrance of the original Bodleian Library. As of 2006, the college had a financial endowment of £52m. There are 612 students , plus various visiting...
(1972) and an M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. In 1975 he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford.
Wolff is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, where he has taught classes in English and creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
since 1997. He also served as the director of the Creative Writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
Program at Stanford from 2000 to 2002.
Prior to his current appointment at Stanford, Wolff taught at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
from 1980 to 1997. While at Syracuse he served on the faculty with Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
and was an instructor in the graduate writing program. Authors who worked with Wolff while they were students at Syracuse include Jay McInerney
Jay McInerney
John Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City; Ransom; Story of My Life; Brightness Falls; and The Last of the Savages...
, Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, George Saunders
George Saunders
George Saunders is a New York Times bestselling American writer of short stories, essays, novellas and children's books. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's and GQ, among other publications...
, Alice Sebold
Alice Sebold
Alice Sebold is an American novelist. She has published three books: Lucky , The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon .-Early life:...
, William Tester
William Tester
William Tester is an American short story writer and novelist. He was raised on a cattle ranch in Florida and is a graduate of Columbia University and Syracuse University . He published the novel Darling in 1991 and the story collection Head in 2000...
, Paul Griner, Ken Garcia, and Paul Watkins
Paul Watkins (novelist)
Paul Watkins is an American author who currently lives with his wife, [Cathy] and two children, [Emma, Oliver] in Hightstown, New Jersey. He is a teacher and writer-in-residence at The Peddie School, and formerly taught at Lawrenceville School. He attended the Dragon School, Oxford, Eton and Yale...
.
Writing
Wolff is best known for his work in two genres: the short storyShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
and the memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
. His first short story collection, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, was published in 1981. The collection was well received and several of its stories have since reappeared in a number of anthologies. Its publication coincided with a period in which several American authors who worked almost exclusively in the short story form were receiving wider recognition. As writers like Wolff, Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
, and Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
became better known, many proclaimed that the United States was in the midst of a renaissance of the short story. (The 20th-century North American version of realism these writers used was often glibly labelled Dirty realism
Dirty realism
Dirty Realism is a North American literary movement born in the 1970s-80s in which the narrative is stripped down to its fundamental features.This movement is a derivative of minimalism. As minimalism, dirty realism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description...
).
Wolff, however, repudiates such claims. In 1994, in the introduction to The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, he wrote,
- To judge from the respectful attention this renaissance has received from reviewers and academics, you would think that it actually happened. It did not. This is a rhetorical flourish to give glamour, even valor, to the succession of one generation by another. The problem with the word "renaissance" is that it needs a dark age to justify itself. I can't think of one, myself... The truth is that the short story form has reliably inspired brilliant performances by our best writers, in a line unbroken since the time of Poe.
Wolff's 1984 novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
The Barracks Thief
The Barracks Thief
The Barracks Thief is a novella by Tobias Wolff, first published in 1984. The story concerns paratroopers in training during the time of the Vietnam war....
won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to...
for 1985. Most of the action takes place at Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Fort Bragg is a major United States Army installation, in Cumberland and Hoke counties, North Carolina, U.S., mostly in Fayetteville but also partly in the town of Spring Lake. It was also a census-designated place in the 2010 census and had a population of 39,457. The fort is named for Confederate...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, where three recent paratrooper
Paratrooper
Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
training graduates are temporarily attached to an airborne
Airborne forces
Airborne forces are military units, usually light infantry, set up to be moved by aircraft and 'dropped' into battle. Thus they can be placed behind enemy lines, and have an ability to deploy almost anywhere with little warning...
infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
company as they await orders to report to Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. Because most of the men in the company fought together in Vietnam, the three newcomers are treated as outsiders and ignored. When money and personal property are discovered missing from the barracks, suspicion falls on the three newcomers. The narrative structure of the book contains several shifts of tone and point of view
Point of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
as the story unfolds.
In 1985, Wolff's second short story collection, Back in the World was published. Several of the stories in this collection, such as "The Missing Person," are significantly longer than the stories in his first collection.
Wolff chronicled his early life in two memoirs. This Boy's Life
This Boy's Life
This Boy's Life is a memoir by Tobias Wolff first published in 1989. It describes the author's adolescence as he wanders the continental United States with his itinerant mother. The first leg of their journey takes them from Florida to Utah, where Mom, fleeing an abusive partner, hopes to get rich...
(1989) concerns itself with the author's adolescence in Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
and then Newhalem
Newhalem, Washington
Newhalem is a small, unincorporated community in northwestern Washington, USA, located in the western foothills of the North Cascades along the Skagit River. It is located within Whatcom County....
, a remote company
Seattle City Light
Seattle City Light is the public utility providing electrical power to Seattle, Washington and parts of its metropolitan area, including all of Shoreline and Lake Forest Park and parts of unincorporated King County, Burien, Normandy Park, Seatac, Renton, and Tukwila...
town in the North Cascade mountains
North Cascades
The North Cascades are a section of the Cascade Range of western North America. They span the border between the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington and are officially named in Canada as the Cascade Mountains...
of Washington State. The memoir describes the nomadic and uncertain life Wolff and his mother experienced after the divorce of Wolff's parents and then his mother's subsequent marriage to an abusive husband and stepfather. In Pharaoh's Army
In Pharaoh's Army
In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of a Lost War is a memoir by Tobias Wolff. The book was originally published on October 4, 1994.The book chronicles the author's experiences as a US Army officer in the Vietnam war. Before beginning his tour of duty proper, Wolff spent a year in Washington, DC learning...
(1994) records Wolff's U.S. Army tour of duty in Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. A third collection of stories, The Night in Question, was published in 1997. Our Story Begins, a collection of new and previously-published stories, appeared in 2008.
Whether he is writing fiction or non-fiction, Wolff's prose is characterized by an exploration of personal/biographical and existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
terrain. As Wyatt Mason wrote in the London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
, "Typically, his protagonists face an acute moral dilemma, unable to reconcile what they know to be true with what they feel to be true. Duplicity is their great failing, and Wolff's main theme."
In 1989, Wolff was chosen as recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story
Rea Award for the Short Story
The Rea Award for the Short Story is an annual award given to a living American or Canadian author chosen for unusually significant contributions to short story fiction.-The Award:...
. Wolff has received the O. Henry Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
on three occasions, for the stories "In the Garden of North American Martyrs" (1981), "Next Door" (1982), and "Sister" (1985). On March 4, 2009, he was awarded The Story Prize
Story Prize
The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first published in the United States during a calendar...
for Our Story Begins.
Film
Wolff's work has found a wider audience through its adaptation to film. This Boy's LifeThis Boy's Life (film)
This Boy's Life is a 1993 film adaptation of the memoir of the same name by Tobias Wolff. It is directed by Michael Caton-Jones and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Tobias Wolff, Robert De Niro as stepfather Dwight Hansen, and Ellen Barkin as Toby's mother, Caroline...
became a feature film directed by Michael Caton-Jones
Michael Caton-Jones
Michael Caton-Jones is the director of such films as Scandal, Rob Roy, Memphis Belle and The Jackal...
which starred Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
, Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
, and Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin is an American film, television and theatre actress.-Early life:She was born Ellen Rona Barkin in Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Evelyn , a hospital administrator who worked at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman...
.
In 2001, Wolff's acclaimed short story "Bullet in the Brain" was adapted into a short film by David Von Ancken and CJ Follini
CJ Follini
CJ Follini is an American digital media entrepreneur, film producer and real estate investor. A native New Yorker who built his group of companies by investing in alternative real estate types such as: digital film studios; healthcare real estate; student housing; and artist residence clubs as...
starring Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
and Dean Winters
Dean Winters
Dean Winters is an American actor, who has portrayed Ryan O'Reily on HBO's Oz, Johnny Gavin on FX Network's Rescue Me, and Dennis Duffy on NBC's 30 Rock...
.
Family
Tobias Wolff's older brother is the author and University of California, IrvineUniversity of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
professor Geoffrey Wolff
Geoffrey Wolff
Geoffrey Wolff is an American novelist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer. Among his honors and recognition are the Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and fellowships of the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy in Berlin , and the Guggenheim...
. A decade before Wolff wrote This Boy's Life
This Boy's Life
This Boy's Life is a memoir by Tobias Wolff first published in 1989. It describes the author's adolescence as he wanders the continental United States with his itinerant mother. The first leg of their journey takes them from Florida to Utah, where Mom, fleeing an abusive partner, hopes to get rich...
, Geoffrey wrote a memoir of his own about the boys' biological father, entitled The Duke of Deception.
Wolff's mother, having settled in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, eventually became President of the League of Women Voters
League of Women Voters
The League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
.
Tobias Wolff is married and has three children.
Partial bibliography
- Ugly RumoursUgly Rumours (novel)Ugly Rumours was the first novel by American writer Tobias Wolff. It was published only in Britain, in 1975, and has never been reprinted...
(1975), a novel. - In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981), a collection of short stories. ISBN 0-88001-497-0
- Matters of Life and Death: New American Stories (1983), editor. ISBN 0-931694-17-5
- The Barracks ThiefThe Barracks ThiefThe Barracks Thief is a novella by Tobias Wolff, first published in 1984. The story concerns paratroopers in training during the time of the Vietnam war....
(1984), a novella. ISBN 0-88001-049-5 - Back in the World (1985), a collection of short stories.
- This Boy's LifeThis Boy's LifeThis Boy's Life is a memoir by Tobias Wolff first published in 1989. It describes the author's adolescence as he wanders the continental United States with his itinerant mother. The first leg of their journey takes them from Florida to Utah, where Mom, fleeing an abusive partner, hopes to get rich...
(1989), a memoir, later made into a film, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. ISBN 0-8021-3668-0 - Best American Short StoriesBest American Short StoriesThe Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.-Edward O'Brien:The...
(1994), editorEditingEditing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
. - The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (1994), editor. ISBN 0-679-74513-0
- In Pharaoh's ArmyIn Pharaoh's ArmyIn Pharaoh's Army: Memories of a Lost War is a memoir by Tobias Wolff. The book was originally published on October 4, 1994.The book chronicles the author's experiences as a US Army officer in the Vietnam war. Before beginning his tour of duty proper, Wolff spent a year in Washington, DC learning...
(1994), a memoir about his experiences as a soldierSoldierA soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
in the Vietnam WarVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. ISBN 0-679-76023-7 - The Collected Short Stories ISBN 0-7475-3153-6
- The Night in Question (1997), a collection of short stories. ISBN 0-679-78155-2
- Old SchoolOld School (novel)Old School is a novel by Tobias Wolff. It was first published on November 4, 2003, after three portions of the novel had appeared in The New Yorker as short stories....
(2003), a novel about a student attending an elite boarding school. ISBN 0-375-40146-6. - Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories (2008), a collection of ten new and twenty-one old stories. ISBN 978-1400044597
- "Awake" (2008), short story appears in The Sunday TimesThe Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
(online text)
External links
- Stifled Truth, an appreciation of Wolff's publications to date, by Wyatt Mason in the London Review of BooksLondon Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
- Tobias Wolff Speaks on his latest work, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories, at a book store in Northern California (April 2008)
- Tobias Wolff reads his short story, "Say Yes" recorded at the Progressive Reading Series, San Francisco 2008
- 'Old School', an interview with Tobias Wolff in the Oxonian Review