Author
Tobias Wolff
Birth Date
June 19, 1945
(80 Years)
Associated Country
United States
Tobias Wolff is an American writer best known for his short stories, memoirs, and novellas that explore themes of identity, deception, moral choice, and coming of age. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and experienced a turbulent childhood, including his parents’ divorce and a strained relationship with his father—experiences that later shaped much of his autobiographical writing.
Wolff served in the U.S. Army, including time in Vietnam, before completing his education at the University of Oxford (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar) and later at Stanford University, where he became a long-time professor of English and creative writing. His academic career has been closely tied to his literary work, especially his influence on generations of emerging writers.
He is widely recognized for memoirs such as This Boy’s Life, which was adapted into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and In Pharaoh’s Army, as well as acclaimed short story collections like Back in the World and The Night in Question. Wolff is considered one of the most important American short story writers of the late 20th century, known for precise prose, psychological depth, and understated but powerful narrative tension.
Wolff served in the U.S. Army, including time in Vietnam, before completing his education at the University of Oxford (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar) and later at Stanford University, where he became a long-time professor of English and creative writing. His academic career has been closely tied to his literary work, especially his influence on generations of emerging writers.
He is widely recognized for memoirs such as This Boy’s Life, which was adapted into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and In Pharaoh’s Army, as well as acclaimed short story collections like Back in the World and The Night in Question. Wolff is considered one of the most important American short story writers of the late 20th century, known for precise prose, psychological depth, and understated but powerful narrative tension.
Books
This Boy's Life 2019
Thirty years ago Tobias Wolff wrote a memoir that changed the form. The “unforgettable” (Time) This Boy’s Life is the story of the young, tough-on-the-outside but vulnerable Toby Wolff. Separated by...
Our Story Begins 2009
Tobias Wolff’s first two books, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and Back in the World, were a powerful demonstration of how the short story can “provoke our amazed appreciation,” as The...
Old School 2004
The protagonist of Tobias Wolff’s shrewdly—and at times devastatingly—observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of...
Among the characters you'll find in this collection of twelve stories by Tobias Wolff are a teenage boy who tells morbid lies about his home life, a timid professor who, in the first genuine outburst...
A young reporter writes an obituary only to be fired when its subject walks into his office, very much alive. A soldier in Vietnam goads his lieutenant into sending him on increasingly dangerous...
Back in the World 1996
A gentle priest finds himself in a Vegas hotel with a hysterical, sun-burned stranger. A show-biz hopeful undergoes a dubious audition in a hearse speeding across the California desert. An aging...
In Pharaoh's Army 1995
Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail,...
The Barracks Thief 1990
The Barracks Thief is the story of three young paratroopers waiting to be shipped out to Vietnam. Brought together one sweltering afternoon to stand guard over an ammunition dump threatened by a...