Frank Conroy (writer)

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Frank Conroy (born January 15, 1936 in New York ; died April 6, 2005 in Iowa City ) was an American writer.

life and work

He became famous in 1967 with his first book Stop-Time . These memoirs of his unsteady childhood in a poor family became a bestseller and made it onto the shortlist for the National Book Award . To this day, Stop-Time is considered one of the most important autobiographies in American literature; In his essay A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1996), David Foster Wallace even went so far as to say that it was perhaps the best autobiography of the 20th century; in any case, Stop-Time was one of the books that confirmed his own decision to become a writer at a young age.

It was not until 18 years later that Conroy's second book appeared, the collection of short stories Midair (1985), in which he also primarily processed autobiographical material, and in 1993 his only novel Body and Soul. He has also written a number of essays that have been published in renowned magazines such as New Yorker and Harper’s . A selection of his essays appeared in book form in 2002 under the title Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On, and in 2004 his last book Time and Tide, a long essay on the island of Nantucket . Although these later books failed to build on the success of Stop-Time , Conroy exerted some influence on younger American literature as a patron and teacher. From 1982 to 1987 he directed the literature program of the National Endowment for the Arts , from 1987 to 2005 the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa , which under his leadership became a highly regarded talent factory for young writers; under him studied among others Nathan Englander , Abraham Verghese , Curtis Sittenfeld and Elizabeth McCracken .

Works

  • Stop time. Viking, New York 1967, OCLC 671075 .
    • German edition: All the time in the world . From the American by Thomas Mohr. Krüger, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-8105-0337-1 .
  • Midair. Dutton, New York 1985, ISBN 0-525-24319-4 .
  • Body and Soul. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1993, ISBN 3-8105-0334-7 .
    • German edition: Body and Soul . From the American by Thomas Mohr. Krüger, Frankfurt am Main 1995. ISBN 3-8105-0334-7 .
  • Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On: Observations Then and Now. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 2002, ISBN 0-618-15468-X .
  • Time and Tide: A Walk through Nantucket. Crown, New York 2004, ISBN 1-4000-4659-9 .

Secondary literature

  • Bert Almon: Frank Conroy. In: Jay Parini (Ed.): American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies. Supplementary volume 16. Charles Scribner's Sons, Detroi 2007, ISBN 978-0-684-31510-2 , pp. 63-78.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David Foster Wallace: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again . In: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments . Abacus, London 1998, p. 288.
personal data
SURNAME Conroy, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 2005
Place of death Iowa City