John Barth facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Barth
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Barth in 1995
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| Born | May 27, 1930 Cambridge, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | April 2, 2024 (aged 93) Bonita Springs, Florida, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist, academic |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Juilliard School Johns Hopkins University (BA, MA) |
| Period | Since 1956 |
| Genre | Postmodernism, metafiction |
| Notable awards | National Book Award 1973 Chimera |
John Simmons Barth (May 27, 1930 – April 2, 2024) was an American writer. He was famous for his unique stories that often played with how stories are told. This style is called postmodern and metafiction.
His most well-known books came out in the 1960s. These include The Sot-Weed Factor, which is a funny take on Maryland's early history. Another famous book is Giles Goat-Boy, a fantasy story where a university acts like a small version of the Cold War world. He also wrote Lost in the Funhouse, a collection of short stories that were very experimental. In 1973, he won the National Book Award for his novel Chimera.
Contents
Life and Education
John Barth, who was often called "Jack", was born in Cambridge, Maryland. He had an older brother named Bill and a twin sister named Jill. In 1947, he finished high school in Cambridge. There, he played the drums and wrote for the school newspaper.
After high school, he briefly studied music at the Juilliard School. Then, he went to Johns Hopkins University. He earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1951 and a Master of Arts (MA) degree in 1952. His master's thesis was a novel called The Shirt of Nessus. It was based on his experiences at Johns Hopkins.
Family Life and Teaching Career
John Barth married Harriet Anne Strickland on January 11, 1950. That same year, he published two short stories. One was in his university's literary magazine. His daughter, Christine Ann, was born in 1951, and his son, John Strickland, was born in 1952.
From 1953 to 1965, Barth taught at Pennsylvania State University. There, he met his second wife, Shelly Rosenberg. His third child, Daniel Stephen, was born in 1954. In 1965, he moved to the State University of New York at Buffalo. He taught there until 1973. During this time, he discovered the short stories of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Borges's work inspired Barth's collection Lost in the Funhouse.
Barth also taught at Boston University for a year. Then, he returned to Johns Hopkins University in 1973. He taught there until he retired in 1995.
John Barth passed away on April 2, 2024, in Bonita Springs, Florida. He was 93 years old.
His Amazing Books
John Barth started his writing career with two short, realistic novels. These were The Floating Opera and The End of the Road. They were funny and dealt with interesting topics. Barth later said these early books were "straightforward" and "didn't know they were novels."
Exploring New Styles
His book The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) was a big change. The title means "the tobacco merchant." This book is seen as the start of Barth's postmodernism style. It tells a new version of the life of Ebenezer Cooke, a poet in colonial Maryland. The story is full of wild and funny adventures. It even includes a silly, made-up story about Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.
Barth's next novel was Giles Goat-Boy (1966). This is a long, funny fantasy story. It imagines a university as the entire world during the Cold War. The university is split into a secret East Campus and a more open West Campus. George Giles, a boy raised by goats, learns he is human. He then tries to become a "Grand Tutor," a special leader for the university. The book became a surprise best-seller. It made many more people interested in Barth's earlier works.
Playing with Stories
His short story collection Lost in the Funhouse (1968) and the novella collection Chimera (1972) were even more experimental. They focused on the act of writing itself. Chimera won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
In his novel LETTERS (1979), Barth writes letters to characters from his other books. Later novels, like The Tidewater Tales (1987) and The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991), continued this style. They often had writers as main characters who interacted with their own stories. His 1994 book, Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera, even featured Barth himself as the main character. In it, he meets characters from his past books during a sailing trip.
Writing Ideas and Style
John Barth's writing often looked back at older stories and traditions. He would then rewrite them in new and interesting ways. This is a key part of postmodernism. He once said that he liked stories that "circle out and out and becoming more inclusive each time." He often used parody, which is making fun of something in a clever way, as a main tool in his books.
Around 1972, Barth said that for him, "The process [of making a novel] is the content." This meant that how a story was made was as important as the story itself.
Important Essays
While writing his novels, Barth also thought a lot about how fiction works. In 1967, he wrote a very important essay called The Literature of Exhaustion. In this essay, he suggested that traditional, realistic storytelling was "used-up." He described his own work as "novels which imitate the form of a novel, by an author who imitates the role of author."
Some people thought this essay meant that novels were "dying." But Barth later explained that he only meant one type of storytelling was changing. In 1980, he wrote another essay, "The Literature of Replenishment," to make his point clearer. He wanted to show new directions for writing.
Awards and Recognition
John Barth received many awards for his writing:
- 1956 – National Book Award finalist for The Floating Opera
- 1965 – The Brandeis University creative arts award in fiction
- 1966 – National Institute of Arts and Letters grant in literature
- 1965–1966 – The Rockefeller Foundation grant in fiction
- 1968 – Nominated for the National Book Award for Lost in the Funhouse
- 1973 – Shared the National Book Award for Chimera with John Edward Williams for Augustus
- 1974 – Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1974 – Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1997 – F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Fiction
- 1998 – Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award
- 1998 – PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story
- 1999 – Enoch Pratt Society's Lifetime Achievement in Letters Award
- 2008 – Roozi Rozegari, Iranian literature prize for best foreign work translation The Floating Opera
See also
In Spanish: John Barth para niños
- Maryland literature
