Tobias Wolff, master of the memoir and the short story, has just published his first novel, Old School (November 2003), the story of a working class boy who weeks to “blend in” at a posh New England prep school. He is best known for his 1989 memoir of childhood, This Boy’s Life, which received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Ambassador Book Award of the English-speaking Union and provided the basis of a 1993 motion picture. Wolff’s second memoir, In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War (1994), an unflinching account of the author’s tour of duty in Vietnam, was a finalist for the National Book Award. A three-time winner of the O. Henry Award, Wolff is also celebrated for his Night in Question (1996). Equally revered as a teacher, he was the Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford University (1975-1978) and one of the leading lights of the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University (1980-1997). In 1997, he returned to Stanford, where he presently teaches.
