Vance Bourjaily
Vance Bourjaily | |
---|---|
Born | September 17, 1922 Cleveland, Ohio |
Died | August 31, 2010 Greenbrae, California | (aged 87)
Occupation |
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Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Bowdoin College |
Genre | Fiction |
Vance Nye Bourjaily (September 17, 1922 – August 31, 2010) was an American novelist, playwright, journalist, creative writing teacher, and essayist.[1][2]
Life
Bourjaily was born in
Bourjaily graduated from Bowdoin College with a B.A. in 1947. While at Bowdoin, he became a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Theta chapter). After graduating, he lived for a few years in San Francisco, writing feature stories for the San Francisco Chronicle before moving to New York City in 1950.[1][4]
Bourjaily married Bettina Yensen in 1946. The couple had three children. His daughter Anna, along with the daughter's fifth-grade classmate, were killed in a 1964 car accident, in which Bourjaily was driving. Yensen and Bourjaily later divorced.
Bourjaily remarried in 1985, to Yasmin Mogul (a former student) and had a son, Omar,[5] by her. According to his wife, Bourjaily died in Greenbrae, California on August 31, 2010[1] after slipping into a coma just a few days after suffering from a fall.
Bourjaily's son Phil is a columnist for Field & Stream magazine.
Career
Bourjaily's first novel, entitled The End of My Life, was heavily influenced by Bourjaily's wartime experiences.[
Bourjaily spent much of his career in academia. From 1957 to 1980, he worked as a creative writing instructor and a professor at the
Bibliography
- Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2009. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009.
Selected works
- The End of My Life (1947)
- The Girl in the Abstract Bed (1954)
- The Hound of Earth (1955)
- The Violated (1958)
- Confessions of a Spent Youth (1960)
- The Unnatural Enemy: Essays on Hunting (1963)
- The Man Who Knew Kennedy (1967)
- Brill Among the Ruins (1970)
- Country Matters: Collected Reports from the Fields and Streams of Iowa and Other Places (essays) (1973)
- Now Playing at Canterbury (1976)
- A Game Men Play (1980)
- The Great Fake Book (1986)
- Old Soldier: A Novel (1990)
References
- ^ a b c d Bruce Weber, Vance Bourjaily, Novelist Exploring Postwar America, Dies at 87 from The New York Times, September 3, 2010.
- ^ T. Rees Shapiro, Vance Bourjaily, prolific novelist and writing professor, dies at 87 from The Washington Post, September 4, 2010.
- ^ Pretending to Be Arab: Role-Playing in Vance Bourjaily's "The Fractional Man," Evelyn Shakir, MELUS (Multi Ethnic Literature of the United States), Vol. 9, No. 1, Varieties of Ethnic Criticism (Spring, 1982), pp. 7-21
- ^ McLellan, Dennis (12 September 2010). "Vance Bourjaily dies at 87; novelist, professor whose WWII experiences influenced early work". Retrieved 24 August 2016 – via LA Times.
- ^ Weber, Bruce (4 September 2010). "Vance Bourjaily, 87, novelist; explored post-WWII themes". Boston.com.
- ^ "Article « The Novels Of Vance Bourjaily « Commentary Magazine". commentarymagazine.com. April 1961.
- ^ "Postscript: Vance Bourjaily". The New Yorker. 3 September 2010. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
- ^ "Vance Bourjaily Papers 1942–1984 (Bowdoin - George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives)". bowdoin.edu.
- ^ "Vance Bourjaily, writer and teacher, dies at age 87". Retrieved 24 August 2016.
- ^ "1978 - www.nbafictionblog.org - National Book Awards Fiction Winners". Retrieved 24 August 2016.
External links
- Vance Bourjaily at IMDb
- Papers by Vance Bourjaily at the Bowdoin College website.
- Vance Bourjaily Papers at the University of Iowa Libraries
- Abstract on the novels of Vance Bourjaily at Commentary Magazine
- Vance Bourjaily at the Biography Reference Bank