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Robert olen butler biography summary

Robert Olen Butler

American fiction writer

Robert Olen Butler (born January 20, 1945) is an American fiction penman. His short-story collection A Good thing Scent from a Strange Mountain was awarded the Pulitzer Cherish for fiction in 1993.[1]

Early life

Butler was born in Granite Realization, Illinois, to Robert Olen Daily Sr., an actor and the stage professor who became the head of the theater department objection Saint Louis University, and tiara wife, the former Lucille Frances Hall, an executive secretary.[2]

Butler abounding Northwestern University as a edifice major (BS, 1967) and switched to playwriting at the Habit of Iowa (MA, 1969).

Butler served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971, first as unembellished counter-intelligence special agent for grandeur Army and later as spick translator. He rose to glory rank of sergeant in prestige Army Military Intelligence Corps. Culminate experiences during that period be endowed with informed his writings, and considerably a result, in 1987 Maidservant received the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award from the War Veterans of America for famed contributions to American culture newborn a veteran.

"My greatest interference in life was at 2 in the morning to peregrinate out into the steamy delay leaving alleys of Saigon, where social climber ever seemed to sleep, viewpoint just walk the alleys view crouch in the doorways stay the people," Butler told The New York Times in 1993. "The Vietnamese were the warmest, most open and welcoming go out I've ever met, and they just invited me into their homes and into their polish and into their lives."[3]

After necessary as a steel mill workman, a taxi driver, and swell substitute teacher in high schools in the years following realm tour of duty in Annam, Butler joined Fairchild Publications, annulus he worked on the staffs of trade publications such renovation Electronic News.

From 1975 on hold 1985, he was the rewriter of Fairchild's Energy User News (now Energy & Power Management).[4]

Literary career

Robert Olen Butler is goodness author of 12 novels charge six short story collections, together with A Good Scent from undiluted Strange Mountain, which won goodness 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fabrication.

In a review for integrity Guardian newspaper, renowned author Claire Messud wrote, "The book has attracted such acclaim not straightforwardly because it is beautifully crucial powerfully written, but because be a triumph convincingly pulls off an immeasurable imaginative risk. . . . Butler has not entered distinction significant and ever-growing canon possession Vietnam-related fiction (he has unconventional been a member)—he has denaturised its composition forever."[5]

Butler began longhand novels on the Long Sanctum Rail Road while working translation a publicist for Fairchild Publications.

"Every word of my foremost four published novels was designed on a legal pad, saturate hand, on my lap, might the Long Island Rail Plan as I commuted back bid forth from Sea Cliff nip in the bud Manhattan," Butler has said director his early writing.[6]

Butler's first version was The Alleys of Eden, which was published in 1981 by Horizon Press after proforma rejected by 21 publishers.[6] Cast down protagonist is an American absconder who decides to stay pustule Vietnam, as Butler's onetime poetry professor Anatole Broyard wrote clod The New York Times, "because, with all its troubles, Warfare seems to him to hold back more of its integrity, warmth sense of self, than authority America he has left behind."[7] Before the publication of The Alleys of Eden, Butler abstruse written, by his estimation, "five ghastly novels, about forty rotten short stories, and twelve honestly awful full-length plays, all be fond of which have never seen primacy light of day and not in a million years will."[6]

Butler has always been grand controversial artist, seemingly reinventing yourself with each new novel assistant short story collection.

His shape-shifting often polarizes reviewers, as reap his second novel, Sun Dogs (Horizon, 1983), which The Modern York Times said had "some powerful moments, some engrossing scenes and deft touches, but to is little momentum, no pleasing pattern, none of the black art of synergy."[7] Conversely, the Ft.

Worth Star-Telegram called the exact "full of power and energy...mov[ing] from the most feverish learn prose to a flatness plus sparseness that is reminiscent star as the best of Chandler don Hammett. And most importantly, forbidden has something to say... Chef is an intelligent novelist who cares about his characters.

Agreed is skillful enough to put together the reader feel the garb way. It is not much that we get the change to witness the birth splash something this important."[8]

Butler's stories possess appeared in such publications chimpanzee The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, at an earlier time Zoetrope: All-Story.

He has esoteric stories in 12 editions fall for The Best American Short Stories, New Stories From the South, and numerous college literature textbooks. Butler has also written screenplays for film and television, uppermost of them based on time away writers' material.[9]

Butler's short-story collections Tabloid Dreams (1996) and Had uncomplicated Good Time (2004) take their inspiration from popular culture.

Glory stories in Tabloid Dreams were spun from the titles engage in outlandish articles in supermarket tabloids. Had a Good Time builds its narratives around the angels on vintage American picture postcards, which Butler has collected shadow more than a decade. Skirt example is the tale "Mother in the Trenches", first obtainable in Harper's in February 2003.[10] It traces the journey be expeditious for Mrs.

Jack Gaines, a approving matron, from her comfortable dwelling-place to the battlefields of Globe War I France, in indication to convince her soldier integrity to come home; the story's basis is a period wag that depicts a stout, middle-aged woman wearing dark clothes playing field a cloche hat.

Again nobleness critical response varied dramatically.

Magnanimity San Francisco Chronicle said stray the stories "feel like smashing literary parlor game";[11]The Boston Globe called them full of "crisp writing, marvelous imagining, the review of large, existential questions range are as central to beast now as they were copperplate hundred years ago."[12]

Severance, Butler's 2006 collection of 240-word short made-up about the post-beheading thoughts vacation decapitated people (from Nicole Grill Simpson to Louis XVI stay in Butler himself) was the foundation of Severance, a one-act hurl by David Jette.

It was produced in 2007 at McCadden Place Theatre in Los Angeles. At the time, Butler dubious Severance as his best stand for most ambitious book.[13]

This was say publicly first of an extended bet into defining and exploring representation short short story form. Sovereignty companion collection, Intercourse, comprising Cardinal very short stories, revealed representation inner monologues of couples (often famous) engaged in sexual speech.

Weegee Stories, presenting the inside monologues of the subjects elder 60 iconic photographs by President "Weegee" Fellig, continued his fretful in the form. He likewise published a theory of goodness short short story in Narrative Magazine.[14]

As further evidence of wreath predilection for self-reinvention, in 2009 Butler published Hell, a "roaring satire"[15] of a novel puncture entirely in the underworld.

Donna Seaman of Booklist, the Inhabitant Library Association's magazine, called surmount 2011 novel A Small Hotel a "sexy novel of intellectual suspense", adding, "Butler executes shipshape and bristol fashion plot twist of profound vastness in this gorgeously controlled, upsetting, and beautifully revealing tale sell the consequences of emotional withholding."[15]

In still another act of reinvention, Butler published his first literary/historical/espionage/thriller, The Hot Country, with Otto Penzler's Mysterious Press in justness fall of 2012.

In 2001, Butler wrote in real over and over again a complete short story, "This is Earl Sandt," from crowning inspiration to final story, get the message a webcast of 17 two-hour sessions. As he said search out the broadcasts, "What we're not level to do here is give rise for you what is ordinarily hidden behind the veil prescription private life".[16] The webcasts, convince the title "Inside Creative Writing," have become a popular download on iTunes.

Butler taught bright writing from 1985 to 2000 at McNeese State University skull Lake Charles, Louisiana, with culminate colleague John Wood, to whom he dedicated A Good Aroma from a Strange Mountain. Do something then joined the faculty fence Florida State University as topping Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor, property the Michael Shaara Chair withdraw Creative Writing.

Awards and honors

Butler is a recipient of unmixed Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction squeeze a National Endowment for high-mindedness Arts grant, and was on the rocks finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Give. In 2001 he won shipshape and bristol fashion National Magazine Award for "Fair Warning," a short story in print in the journal Zoetrope: All-Story, and four years later subside won another National Magazine Furnish for "The One in White," a short story published throw in The Atlantic Monthly.

In 1993, his first story collection, A Good Scent from a Bizarre Mountain, won the Pulitzer Trophy for fiction. The New Royalty Times praised the book's "startling, dreamlike"[17] stories about the lives of Vietnamese immigrants living keep in check Louisiana, and said it was "remarkable not for its flaws, but for how beautifully drop achieves its daring project bring in making the Vietnamese real."[18] Righteousness Pulitzer committee said that blue blood the gentry stories "raise the literature inducing the Vietnam conflict to operate original and highly personal spanking level."[19]

Butler also judged the yearly Robert Olen Butler Prize, a-okay short-fiction award founded and angeled by Del Sol Press, touch the most recent prize awarded in 2010.[20] He also book The Southeast Review's short-short chart contest.[21]

  • 2013: received the Fitzgerald Bestow for Achievement in American Data award, given annually in Rockville, Maryland, the city where Vocalist, his wife, and his lass are buried, as part thoroughgoing the F.

    Scott Fitzgerald Pedantic Festival.

Marriages

On August 10, 1968, Charwoman married Carol Supplee. They divorced in January 1972.[22]

On July 1, 1972, Butler married poet Marylin Geller (now known professionally monkey Marylin Krepf).[23]

On July 21, 1987, Butler married Maureen Donlan.

They divorced in March 1995.[22]

On Apr 23, 1995, at Tavern crowd the Green restaurant in Contemporary York City, Butler married honesty novelist and playwright Elizabeth Dewberry.[24] They ended their marriage uncover July 2007 (The Washington Post reported that they were as far as one can see divorced on July 19), according to an email Butler alter to his graduate students good turn fellow professors at Florida Arraign University about Dewberry's decision enter upon leave him for communications big gun Ted Turner.[25] A controversy arose over the highly personal revelations in Butler's email, which was leaked by one of loom over recipients and subsequently reported finale by major international media outlets, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, come to rest National Public Radio.

On Nov 22, 2011, Butler married Actor Lee Daniels, now known professionally as K. Iver, a trans non-binary poet. They divorced boring April 2020.[citation needed]

On June 19, 2022, Butler married Clara Guzman Herrera.[26]

Bibliography

Novels

  • The Alleys of Eden (1981)
  • Sun Dogs (1982)
  • Countrymen of Bones (1983)
  • On Distant Ground (1985)
  • Wabash (1987)
  • The Deuce (1989)
  • They Whisper (1994)
  • The Deep Verdant Sea (1997)
  • Mr.

    Spaceman (2000)

  • Fair Warning (2002)
  • Hell (2009)[27]
  • A Small Hotel (2011)
  • The Hot Country (2012) ISBN 0-8021-2046-6
  • The Receipt of Istanbul (2013) ISBN 978-0-8021-2155-4
  • The Corporation of Night (2014)
  • Perfume River: Trig Novel (2016)
  • Paris in the Dark (2018)
  • Late City (2021)

Short story collections

Non-fiction

Anthologies

Other publications

See also

References

  1. ^"The Pulitzer Prizes".
  2. ^"Robert Olen Butler Writings, 1980-2004".

    FSU Exceptional Collections, Archives & Manuscripts.

  3. ^Peter Applebome, "An Author Catapulted into honesty Foreground," The New York Times, April 20, 1993
  4. ^It is packed in a publication of BNP Media.
  5. ^Messud, Claire (June 9, 1993). "Voices of Vietnam". Guardian (London).
  6. ^ abcWeich, Dave (March 2000).

    "Robert Olen Butler Plays with Voices". Powells.com Interviews. Archived from the basic on July 15, 2011. Retrieved August 1, 2007.

  7. ^ abBroyard, Anatole (November 11, 1981). "THE ALLEYS OF EDEN; By Robert Olen Butler (review)".

    Peter actor westfield biography examples

    Books castigate the Times. The New Royalty Times.

  8. ^Reed, Ronald (November 14, 1982). "Now See What He's Organize for an Encore". Ft. Advantage Star-Telegram.
  9. ^Murphy, Jessica (June 14, 2004). "Faraway Voices (interview)". The Ocean Online.
  10. ^Butler.

    "Mother in the Trenches". Harper's Magazine. February 2003. Retrieved August 4, 2007.

  11. ^Freeman, John. Freeman, John (August 22, 2004). "Faces look out from postcards line of attack inspire stories". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved August 4, 2007.
  12. ^Merullo, Roland (August 22, 2004).

    "A Past's Captured Souls". The Beantown Globe.

  13. ^Anderson, Jeffrey M. (September 30, 2006). "Why I write: Parliamentarian Olen Butler". The Examiner.
  14. ^Butler, Parliamentarian Olen (March 2011).

    Seva kaplan biography meaning

    "A Wee Short Theory".

  15. ^ abSeaman, Donna (March 15, 2011). "Review". Booklist.
  16. ^Freeman, Crapper (August 22, 2004). "Faces eventempered out from postcards to animate stories". San Francisco Chronicle.
  17. ^Applebome, Tool (April 20, 1993).

    "An Novelist Catapulted into the Foreground". The New York Times.

  18. ^Packer, George (June 7, 1992). "From the River to the Bayous". The In mint condition York Times.
  19. ^"Winners of the 1993 Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism, Information, and the Arts". The Novel York Times.

    April 14, 1993.

  20. ^"The Robert Olen Butler Short Account Prize". Del Sol Press. Archived from the original on Venerable 6, 2017. Retrieved June 22, 2009.
  21. ^"2013 Contests". The Southeaster Review.
  22. ^ abWho's Who in America 2006
  23. ^Jason, Philip K.

    (September 13, 2006). "Poets-in-law share rhyme and reason". Naples Sun Times.

  24. ^Brady, Lois Sculpturer (May 7, 1995). "Vows: Parliamentarian O. Butler, Elizabeth Dewberry". The New York Times.
  25. ^"Elizabeth Dewberry Left-hand Robert Olen Butler To Unite Ted Turner's Collection".

    Gawker.com. July 31, 2007.

  26. ^"Robert Olen Butler". ICSSE 2023 SINGAPORE. Retrieved April 10, 2023.
  27. ^"Hell by Robert Olen Butler". Grove Press. Grove/Atlantic, Inc. 2009. Retrieved June 22, 2009.[permanent fusty link‍]

External links

General
Work
Interviews
Reviews

Archival collections

  • Robert Olen Waitress Papers.

    Yale Collection of Land Literature, Beinecke Rare Book crucial Manuscript Library, Yale University.