William T. Vollmann facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
William T. Vollmann
|
|
|---|---|
Vollmann in 2006
|
|
| Born | William Tanner Vollmann July 28, 1959 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Education | Deep Springs College Cornell University (BA) |
| Period | 1987–present |
| Genre | Literary fiction, historical fiction |
| Subject | War, violence, science, human compassion |
William Tanner Vollmann (born July 28, 1959) is an American writer. He is known for his novels, short stories, and essays. He also worked as a journalist and reported from war zones. In 2005, he won the National Book Award for Fiction for his novel Europe Central.
Contents
About William T. Vollmann
William T. Vollmann was born in Los Angeles, California. He lived there for five years before moving to other places like Bloomington, Indiana, New Hampshire, and New York. He now lives in Sacramento, California.
When he was young, a sad event happened that he says influenced his writing. He studied at Deep Springs College and then went to Cornell University. There, he earned a degree in comparative literature, which is about studying different types of literature from various cultures. He later started a doctoral program at the University of California, Berkeley, but he left after one year.
William T. Vollmann's Career
Before becoming a full-time writer, Vollmann worked different jobs. One time, he saved enough money to travel to Afghanistan in 1982. He wanted to learn about the people there and see how he could help. He even joined a group of mujahideen (Afghan fighters) who were fighting against the Soviet Union. His experiences during this trip later inspired his first non-fiction book, An Afghanistan Picture Show, or, How I Saved the World. This book was published in 1992.
After returning to the United States, Vollmann worked as a computer programmer. He wrote much of his first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels, on office computers late at night.
Writing Style and Influences
Vollmann's writing is influenced by many famous authors. Some of these include Ernest Hemingway, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Yukio Mishima, and Leo Tolstoy. He often writes about important topics like war, violence, science, and human kindness.
He has also written for The New York Times Book Review. Vollmann often travels and reports from different places to gather information for his bigger writing projects.
Major Works
In 2003, Vollmann published a very large book called Rising Up and Rising Down. It was seven volumes long and had over 3,300 pages with many pictures. This book was about violence and how to understand its causes and effects. He spent more than 20 years working on it. He based it on his reporting from war zones like Cambodia, Somalia, and Iraq. A shorter, one-volume version was published later.
His novel Europe Central (2005) tells the stories of many different people during the fighting between Germany and the Soviet Union. One of the characters is the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. This novel won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction.
In 2008, Vollmann received a special award called the Strauss Living Award. This award gives writers money each year so they can focus only on their writing. In 2009, he published Imperial, a non-fiction book about life in Imperial County, California, which is near the border with Mexico.
He also wrote a book about Japanese Noh theater in 2010. It is called Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement, and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater.
Vollmann's writings also include ghost and supernatural stories. These were published in a collection called Last Stories and Other Stories.
Personal Approach to Technology
William T. Vollmann prefers a simple lifestyle. He does not use cellphones or credit cards. He tries to avoid many modern technologies. His personal papers and writings are kept at the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library of Ohio State University.
Studies of William T. Vollmann's Work
Many people have studied William T. Vollmann's books and essays. Critical essays about his work have appeared in magazines like Review of Contemporary Fiction and Science Fiction Studies. In 2010, a German magazine called 032c dedicated 40 pages to him. It included a rare interview with the author.
Several books have also been written to analyze his work:
- Expelled from Eden: A WTV Reader (2004), co-edited by Michael Hemmingson and Larry McCaffery.
- William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews (2009) by Michael Hemmingson.
- William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion (2014), edited by Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes.
- Conversations with William T. Vollmann (2020), edited by Daniel Lukes.
Awards
- (1988) Whiting Award
- (2005) National Book Award for Fiction for Europe Central
See also
In Spanish: William T. Vollmann para niños
- 1994 roadside attack on Spin magazine journalists
