Tobias Wolff - Wikipedia Tobias Wolff From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search American writer and educator For the German footballer, see Tobias Wolf. Tobias Wolff Wolff at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, California, April 25, 2008 Born Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff (1945-06-19) June 19, 1945 (age 75) Birmingham, Alabama, United States Occupation Writer Alma mater Hertford College, Oxford Stanford University Genre memoir, short story, novel Spouse Catherine Dolores Spohn (m. 1975; 3 children) Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff (born June 19, 1945) is an American short story writer, memoirist, novelist, and teacher of creative writing. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life (1989) and In Pharaoh's Army (1994). He has written four short story collections and two novels including The Barracks Thief (1984), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Wolff received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in September 2015.[1] His academic career began at Syracuse University (1982–1997) and, since 1997, he has taught at Stanford University, where he is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. Contents 1 Life and career 2 Writing 3 Adaptations 4 Family 5 Awards and honors 6 Bibliography 6.1 Novels 6.2 Collections 6.3 Edited volumes 6.4 Non-fiction 6.5 Short fiction 7 References 8 External links Life and career[edit] Tobias Wolff was born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama, the second son of Rosemary (Loftus) from Hartford, Connecticut, and Arthur Samuels Wolff, an aeronautical engineer who was a son of a Jewish doctor and his wife.[2][3] The father had become Episcopalian, and Wolff did not learn about his father's Jewish roots until he was an adult. (Wolff was raised and identifies as Catholic, like his mother).[2][4] His parents separated when Wolff was five and his elder brother Geoffrey was twelve; he lived with his mother in a variety of places, including Seattle, Washington when he was an adolescent. After she remarried, they lived in Newhalem, a small company town in the North Cascade Mountains, where his stepfather, Robert Thompson, worked at Seattle City Light. His father and brother lived on the East Coast during this period. Geoffrey knew nothing about where his brother was until he entered Princeton.[2] As a kid Wolff had a local paper route and was a Boy Scout. After attending Concrete High School in Concrete, also in the North Cascades, Wolff applied to and was accepted by The Hill School, located 35 miles from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had applied under the self-embellished name "Tobias Jonathan von Ansell-Wolff III", adopting part of one of his father's personas, Saunders Ansell-Wolff 3d.[2] When Wolff was found to have had forged his transcripts and recommendation letters, he was later expelled.[5] Wolff served in the U.S. Army from 1964 to 1968, when he trained for Special Forces, learned Vietnamese, and served as an adviser in Vietnam.[2][5] He holds a First Class Honours degree in English from Hertford College, Oxford (1972). After returning to the United States, in 1975, he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University, where he earned an M.A.. While continuing to write, Wolff taught at Syracuse University from 1980 to 1997. He published his first short story collection in 1981. At Syracuse he served on the faculty with Raymond Carver and was an instructor in the graduate writing program. Authors who had studied with Wolff as students at Syracuse include Jay McInerney, Tom Perrotta, George Saunders, Alice Sebold, William Tester, Paul Griner, Ken Garcia, Dana C. Kabel, Jan-Marie Spanard, and Paul Watkins. In 1997, Wolff transferred to Stanford, where he is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. He has taught classes in English and creative writing, and also served as the director of the Creative Writing Program at Stanford from 2000 to 2002. Writing[edit] Wolff is best known for his work in two genres: the short story 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 been published 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 such as Wolff, Raymond Carver and Andre Dubus became better known, the United States was said to be having a renaissance of the short story. (Their 20th-century North American version of realism was often labelled as Dirty realism for its gritty veracity.) Wolff repudiated this characterization. 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 The Barracks Thief won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for 1985. Most of the action takes place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 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), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography, is devoted to the author's adolescence in Seattle and Newhalem, a remote company town in the North Cascade mountains of Washington. The memoir describes the nomadic and uncertain life Wolff and his mother led after his parents divorced. His mother's subsequent marriage to a man who was revealed as an abusive husband and stepfather deeply affected their lives. In Pharaoh's Army (1994) records Wolff's U.S. Army tour of duty in Vietnam. He published a third collection of stories, The Night in Question, in 1997. His fourth short-story book, Our Story Begins (2008), includes both new and previously published stories. 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."[6] Elsewhere Wolff said of the personal nature of his work: "I have to be able, with a straight face, to tell myself that something is nonfiction if I say it's nonfiction. That's why, although there are autobiographical elements in some of my stories, I still call them fiction because that's what they are. Even though they may have been set into motion by some catalyst of memory."[7] 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). In 2008, he was awarded The Story Prize for Our Story Begins. Adaptations[edit] Some of Wolff's work has been adapted to film. This Boy's Life was adapted as a feature film directed by Michael Caton-Jones. It starred Leonardo DiCaprio as the teenage Wolff, Robert De Niro as Wolff's abusive step-father Dwight, and Ellen Barkin, as Wolff's mother Rosemary.[8] In 2001, Wolff's acclaimed short story "Bullet in the Brain" (from The Night in Question) was adapted as a short film by David Von Ancken and CJ Follini; it starred Tom Noonan and Dean Winters. Family[edit] Tobias Wolff's older brother is the author Geoffrey Wolff. A decade before Tobias Wolff published This Boy's Life, his brother wrote a memoir of his own about the boys' biological father, entitled The Duke of Deception. Wolff's mother later settled in Washington, D.C. There she became president of the League of Women Voters. Tobias Wolff is married and lives with his wife, Catherine Dolores Spohn, and three children in California. Awards and honors[edit] This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources. 1985 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Barracks Thief 1989 Whiting Award for Fiction and Nonfiction 2006 PEN/Malamud Award (co-winner) 2008 The Story Prize 2014 Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Oregon State University 2014 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters,[9] 2015 National Medal of Arts,[10] US National Endowment for the Arts Bibliography[edit] This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources. Novels[edit] Ugly Rumours (1975) ISBN 0048231177 The Barracks Thief (1984) (novella) ISBN 0-88001-049-5 Old School (2003) ISBN 0-375-40146-6 Collections[edit] In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981) ISBN 0-88001-497-0 Hunters in the Snow (1981) Back in the World (1985) The Collected Short Stories ISBN 0-7475-3153-6 The Night in Question (1997) ISBN 0-679-78155-2 Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories (2008) ISBN 978-1-4000-4459-7 Edited volumes[edit] Matters of Life and Death: New American Stories (1983) ISBN 0-931694-17-5 Best American Short Stories (1994) The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (1994) ISBN 0-679-74513-0 Non-fiction[edit] This Boy's Life (1989), a memoir about his boyhood in the 1950s ISBN 0-8021-3668-0 In Pharaoh's Army (1994), a memoir about his experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War. ISBN 0-679-76023-7 Short fiction[edit] Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Notes Smokers 1976 Wolff, Tobias (December 1976). "Smokers". Atlantic Monthly. First published short story. Fortune 1988 Wolff, Tobias (Summer 1988). "Fortune". Granta. 24 (Inside Intelligence). Memorial 1993 Wolff, Tobias (Summer 1993). "Memorial". Granta. 44 (The Last Place on Earth). Bible 2007 Wolff, Tobias (August 2007). "Bible". The Atlantic. All ahead of them 2013 Wolff, Tobias (July 8–15, 2013). "All ahead of them". The New Yorker. 89 (20): 74–79. References[edit] ^ "Obama awards Stanford's Tobias Wolff a National Medal of Arts | The Dish". news.stanford.edu. Retrieved December 17, 2015. ^ a b c d e Prose, Francine (February 5, 1989). "The Brothers Wolff". The New York Times. ^ "Tobias Wolff Biography". notablebiographies.com. ^ "Old School". neabigread.org. ^ a b End notes for This Boy's Life ^ Mason, Wyatt (February 5, 2004). "Stifled Truth". London Review of Books. 26 (03). ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved November 21, 2020. ^ Homes, A.M. "Tobias Wolff", BOMB Magazine, Fall, 1996. Retrieved on [2012-07-24] ^ "This Boy's Life". IMDB. ^ "American Academy of Arts and Letters Members". www.artsandletters.org. ^ "Obama to award arts medals to Sally Field, Stephen King - Verizon". Retrieved September 5, 2015. External links[edit] Appearances on C-SPAN Profile at The Whiting Foundation Übermensch, an excerpt from the novel Old School in Narrative Magazine (Fall 2003) Jack Livings (Fall 2004). "Tobias Wolff, The Art of Fiction No. 183". The Paris Review. Stifled Truth, an appreciation of Wolff's publications to date, by Wyatt Mason in the London Review of Books 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 Jane Curtin reading Tobias Wolff's story "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs" on YouTube v t e National Medal of Arts recipients (2010s) 2010 Robert Brustein Van Cliburn Mark di Suvero Donald Hall Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Quincy Jones Harper Lee Sonny Rollins Meryl Streep James Taylor 2011 Will Barnet Rita Dove Al Pacino Emily Rauh Pulitzer Martin Puryear Mel Tillis United Service Organization (USO) André Watts 2012 Herb Alpert Lin Arison Joan Myers Brown Renée Fleming Ernest Gaines Ellsworth Kelly Tony Kushner George Lucas Elaine May Laurie Olin Allen Toussaint Washington Performing Arts Society 2013 Julia Alvarez Brooklyn Academy of Music Joan Harris Bill T. Jones John Kander Jeffrey Katzenberg Maxine Hong Kingston Albert Maysles Linda Ronstadt Billie Tsien & Tod Williams James Turrell 2014 John Baldessari Ping Chong Míriam Colón The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Sally Field Ann Hamilton Stephen King Meredith Monk George Shirley University Musical Society Tobias Wolff 2015 Mel Brooks Sandra Cisneros Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Morgan Freeman Philip Glass Berry Gordy Santiago Jiménez Jr. Moises Kaufman Ralph Lemon Audra McDonald Luis Valdez Jack Whitten 2019 Alison Krauss Sharon Percy Rockefeller The Musicians of the United States Military Jon Voight Complete list 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Authority control BNE: XX1161532 BNF: cb12057470f (data) CANTIC: a10179392 GND: 118886916 ICCU: IT\ICCU\LO1V\020351 ISNI: 0000 0000 8169 2766 LCCN: n81010525 MBA: de64f674-82d1-4ccb-a6d1-b0b799e5a6da NDL: 00477450 NKC: mub2017966950 NLA: 35616887 NLK: KAC200905112 NTA: 072087293 PLWABN: 9810665303305606 SELIBR: 226753 SNAC: w6k64pv5 SUDOC: 028816986 Trove: 1016106 VIAF: 99001261 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n81010525 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tobias_Wolff&oldid=1001523117" Categories: 1945 births 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford American memoirists United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War American male novelists American people of Jewish descent American Roman Catholics The Hill School alumni Living people Minimalist writers Writers from Birmingham, Alabama Writers from Syracuse, New York Stanford University alumni Stanford University Department of English faculty Syracuse University faculty United States Army officers Writers from California Novelists from New York (state) Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers The New Yorker people PEN/Malamud Award winners Novelists from Alabama 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use mdy dates from July 2013 Incomplete lists from September 2012 Incomplete lists from December 2016 Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ICCU identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية تۆرکجه Català Deutsch Español فارسی Français 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית مصرى Bahasa Melayu Nederlands 日本語 Polski Português Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски தமிழ் Türkçe 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 20 January 2021, at 02:01 (UTC). 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