Allan Gurganus

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Allan Gurganus (born June 11, 1947 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina ) is an American writer .

Life

Gurganus grew up in rural North Carolina, which is where most of his novels and short stories are set. He first studied painting at the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts . During the Vietnam War he served as a sailor in the US Navy for three years , during which time he began writing. After completing his military service, he enrolled first in the creative writing course at Sarah Lawrence College , then at the Iowa Writers' Workshop ; his teachers included Grace Paley , Stanley Elkins and John Cheever . He later taught creative writing in Iowa, Stanford, and Duke University .

His best known work is the 1989 released debut novel Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (dt. The oldest surviving rebel widow told ), which with more than four million copies sold for eight months on The New York Times Best Seller list was and with Sue -Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters . Filmed for television by CBS , Cicely Tyson won an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in the role of the freed slave girl Castalia. The novel was also adapted in 2003 with Ellen Burstyn in a one-woman play for Broadway. His second novel Plays Well with Others was published in 1997, and he also published numerous short stories in magazines such as The New Yorker , The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review .

Gurganus often took political positions, including against the Iraq war, for which he processed his Vietnam experience in an essay for the New York Times in April 2003 - a few weeks after the invasion.

After a few years in New York City , Gurganus is now living as a freelance writer in North Carolina again .

Awards

Works

Novels

  • Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1989. ISBN 0-394-54537-0
    • dt. The oldest living rebel widow tells . German by Rudolf Hermstein. Goldmann, Munich 1992. ISBN 3-442-30395-8
  • Plays Well with Others . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1997.

Short prose

  • White People . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1991. ISBN 0-394-58841-X
    • German black and white . German by Werner Richter. Goldmann, Munich 1993. ISBN 3-442-09855-6
  • Blessed Assurance . North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, Rocky Mount NC 1990.
    • German final security . German by Werner Richter. Goldmann, Munich 1993. ISBN 3-442-30473-3
  • The Practical Heart . North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, Rocky Mount 1993.
    • German Muriel's laugh . German by Rudolf Hermstein. Goldmann, Munich 1997.
  • The Practical Heart . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 2001. ISBN 0-679-43763-0
    • German Job's travels . German by Rudolf Hermstein and Olaf Matthias Roth. Goldmann, Munich 2004 ISBN 3-442-45410-7
  • Local Souls . WW Norton & Company, New York 2013. ISBN 978-0-87140-379-7

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nytimes.com Allan Gurganus: The War at Home in the New York Times, April 6, 2003
  2. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Foundation - Allan Gurganus. In: gf.org. Retrieved February 13, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed January 15, 2019 .
  4. ^ Book of Members
personal data
SURNAME Gurganus, Allan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Rocky Mount, North Carolina