American writer and journalist
William T. Vollmann
|
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Vollmann in 2006
|
Born
| William Tanner Vollmann
(
1959-07-28
)
July 28, 1959
(age 64)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
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Occupation
|
- Novelist
- journalist
- short story writer
- essayist
|
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Education
| Deep Springs College
Cornell University
(
BA
)
|
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Period
| 1987?present
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Genre
| Literary fiction
, historical fiction
|
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Subject
| War, violence, science, human compassion
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William Tanner Vollmann
(born July 28, 1959) is an American novelist, journalist,
war correspondent
, short story writer, and essayist. He won the 2005
National Book Award for Fiction
with the novel
Europe Central
.
Biography
[
edit
]
William Vollmann was born in Los Angeles and lived there for five years. He attended public high school in
Bloomington, Indiana
, and has also lived in New Hampshire, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area. His father was Thomas E. Vollmann, a business professor at
Indiana University
. When he was nine years old, Vollmann's six-year-old sister drowned in a pond while under his supervision, and he felt responsible for her death.
[1]
According to him, this loss has influenced much of his work.
[2]
Vollmann studied at
Deep Springs College
, and completed a
BA
,
summa cum laude
, in
comparative literature
at
Cornell University
,
[3]
where he lived at the
Telluride House
.
[1]
After graduation, Vollmann went on to the
University of California, Berkeley
, on a fellowship for a doctoral program in
comparative literature
.
[1]
He dropped out after one year.
[4]
Vollmann lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife, who is a
radiation oncologist
.
[4]
[
unreliable source?
]
In 2022, Vollmann's daughter Lisa died of complications from alcoholism.
[5]
Career
[
edit
]
Vollmann worked odd jobs, including a post as a secretary at an insurance company, and saved up enough money to go to
Afghanistan
in 1982. During this trip, he sought to gather information and images that could determine the most deserving candidates for American aid. He eventually foisted himself upon a group of
mujahideen
heading for the front lines. He saw battle with the soldiers, who were
fighting the Soviet Union
, before he came down with
dysentery
and had to be dragged through the Hindu Kush mountains.
[6]
His experiences on this trip inspired his first non-fiction book,
An Afghanistan Picture Show, or, How I Saved the World,
which was not published until 1992.
Upon his return to the US, Vollmann started work as a computer programmer, even though he had virtually no experience with computers. According to a
New York Times Magazine
profile by the novelist
Madison Smartt Bell
, for a year Vollmann wrote much of his first novel,
You Bright and Risen Angels
, after hours on office computers, subsisting on candy bars from vending machines and hiding from the janitorial staff.
[7]
His writing influences include
Ernest Hemingway
,
Comte de Lautreamont
,
Louis-Ferdinand Celine
,
Yukio Mishima
,
Yasunari Kawabata
, and
Leo Tolstoy
.
[8]
In addition to full-length books, Vollmann has written articles and had stories published in
Harper's
,
Playboy
,
Conjunctions
,
Spin Magazine
,
Esquire
,
The New Yorker
,
Gear
, and
Granta
.
He has also contributed to
The New York Times Book Review
.
Vollmann identifies as a "hack journalist"; he often does travel writing and reportage while doing research for his larger fiction or non-fiction projects.
In November 2003 (after many delays), his book
Rising Up and Rising Down
was published. It is a 3,300-page, heavily illustrated, seven-volume treatise on violence. It was nominated for the
National Book Critics Circle Award
. A single-volume condensed version was published at the end of the following year by
Ecco Press
. Vollmann justified the abridgment, saying, "I did it for the money."
[9]
Rising Up and Rising Down
represents more than 20 years of work in which he tries to establish a moral calculus to consider the causes, effects, and ethics of violence. Vollmann based it on his reporting from places of warfare, including
Cambodia
,
Somalia
, and
Iraq
.
Vollmann's other works often deal with the settlement of North America (as in
Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes
, a cycle of seven novels); or stories of people (often prostitutes) on the margins of war, poverty, and hope. His novel
Europe Central
(2005) follows the trajectories of a wide range of characters (including the Russian composer
Dmitri Shostakovich
) caught up in the fighting between Germany and the
Soviet Union
. It won the 2005
National Book Award for Fiction
.
In 2008, Vollmann was awarded a five-year fellowship/grant from the Strauss Living Award, which provides $50,000 a year, tax free. In 2009, Vollmann published
Imperial
,
a nonfiction account of life in
Imperial County, California
, on the border of Mexico.
[10]
In 2010, Vollmann published a critical study of
Japanese Noh theater
entitled
Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement, and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater
.
[11]
In 2008, as part of an exploration of prostitution and transgenderism, Vollmann began cross dressing and developed a female alter ego named Dolores, which is documented in
The Book of Dolores
.
[12]
[13]
Dolores is a relatively young woman trapped in this fat, aging male body,' Mr. Vollmann said. 'I’ve bought her a bunch of clothes, but she's not grateful. She would like to get rid of me if she could.'"
[14]
As early as 2007 Vollmann was writing ghost and supernatural stories?("Widow's Weeds" was published in
AGNI
no. 66 in 2007).
[15]
?which were eventually published by Viking as
Last Stories and Other Stories
. In interviews, he has mentioned a book about abortion called
The Shame of Our Youth,
as well as a study on rape cases in court.
[16]
Vollmann's papers were acquired by the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library of
Ohio State University
.
[17]
In his personal life, Vollmann ? who eschews not only the fame of authorship but also cellphones, credit cards, and other modern age touchstones ? has sometimes been characterized as a misanthrope, even a
Luddite
. In a 2013
Harper's
essay, "Life as a Terrorist", Vollmann revealed how the perception of "anti-progress, anti-industrialist themes" in his early writings had changed his life. Utilizing official files obtained through the
Freedom of Information Act
, the essay details Vollmann's investigation by the
FBI
as a suspect in the mid-1990s
Unabomber
case. Though he was cleared, Vollmann describes a lifetime of unabating negative repercussions from his permanent classified record.
[18]
[19]
Studies
[
edit
]
Full-length critical essays about Vollmann's work have been published in
Review of Contemporary Fiction, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, BookForum,
Open Letters Monthly
, and
Science Fiction Studies.
In 2010, the German magazine
032c
dedicated 40 pages of its 19th issue to Vollmann, and featured a rare interview with the author in addition to reprinted texts.
[20]
Michael Hemmingson
co-edited, with
Larry McCaffery
,
Expelled from Eden: A WTV Reader
(NY: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004) and published
William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co) in 2009.
William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion
, edited by Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes, and including contributions from Larry McCaffery, Jonathan Franzen, Michael Hemmingson, James Franco, Carla Bolte, and others, was published by the University of Delaware in October 2014.
Conversations with William T. Vollmann
, edited by Daniel Lukes, and including pieces by Jonathan Coe, Dennis Cooper, and Donna Seaman, was published by University Press of Mississippi in January 2020.
Awards
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
Novels and collections
[
edit
]
Seven Dreams
series
[
edit
]
The "Prostitution Trilogy"
[
edit
]
Non-fiction
[
edit
]
- An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World
(1992)
- Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means
(2003)
- Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
(2006) (Part of the "Great Discoveries" series)
- Poor People
(2007)
- Riding Toward Everywhere
(2008)
- Imperial
(2009)
- Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater
(2010)
- Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan
(2011) (eBook)
- The Book of Dolores
(2013)
- No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies
(2018)
- No Good Alternative: Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies
(2018)
- "Just Keep Going North: At the Border" (essay,
Harper's
, July 2019)
- "Four Men" (essay,
Harper's
, November 2023)
Unpublished and rare works
[
edit
]
- The Song of Heaven: Grammar and Rhetoric in Literature and Political Action
(1981)
- Welcome to the Memoirs
(autobiography, later reworked as
An Afghanistan Picture Show
) (1983)
[21]
- The Convict Bird: A Children’s Poem
(1988) (bound with steel plates)
- The Happy Girls
(1990) (hand-painted and bound with metal plates, later included in
13 Stories and 13 Epitaphs
)
[22]
- Wordcraft: Hints and Notes
(circa 1990)
[23]
(writer's handbook)
- The Grave of Lost Stories
(1993) (bound in steel and marble box, originally included in
13 Stories and 13 Epitaphs
)
- Burning Songs
(circa 2000) (poems)
- The Book of Candles
(1995?2008) (ten poems, in wooden box)
[24]
- Shadows of Love, Shadows of Loneliness
(2023) (two vols with slipcase, visual art retrospective)
[25]
- How You Are
(forthcoming)
[26]
- A Table for Fortune
(forthcoming)
[27]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
Bell, Madison Smartt (Fall 2000).
"William T. Vollmann, The Art of Fiction No. 163"
. The Paris Review, no. 156
. Retrieved
August 9,
2012
.
- ^
Interview: "William T. Vollman"
, KCRW, April 11, 2004
- ^
Bush, Ben (March 30, 2006).
"An Interview With Creative Nonfiction Writer William T. Vollmann"
.
Poets & Writers
. Retrieved
August 22,
2013
.
- ^
a
b
Braverman, Kate (2005).
"An Interview with William T. Vollmann"
. Retrieved
August 9,
2012
.
- ^
Vollmann, William T. (November 2023) "Four Men: Keeping Company with Outdoor People." Harper's.
https://harpers.org/archive/2023/11/four-men
.)
- ^
032c.com.
"WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN: Conflict, Compassion and the Process of Understanding"
. Retrieved
July 17,
2014
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
Bell, Madison Smartt
(February 6, 1994).
"WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN"
.
The New York Times Magazine
. Retrieved
January 3,
2008
.
- ^
Biblioklept (September 24, 2011).
"William T. Vollmann's Favorite "Contemporary" Books"
. biblioklept
. Retrieved
August 1,
2012
.
- ^
Wood, Michael
(December 15, 2005).
"Parables of a Violent World"
.
The New York Review of Books
. Retrieved
July 24,
2014
.
- ^
Ross, Steven (March 4, 2010).
"A MODEST IMPERIALIST: William T. Vollmann"
.
The Brooklyn Rail
. Retrieved
August 1,
2012
.
- ^
Vollmann, William T. (c. 2009).
Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement, and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater
. HarperCollins.
ISBN
978-0061228483
.
- ^
Vollmann, William T. (October 29, 2013).
The Book of Dolores
(1St ed.). powerHouse Books.
ISBN
9781576876572
.
- ^
"Becoming Dolores: William T. Vollmann Exposes His Female Alter Ego ? 3:AM Magazine"
. Retrieved
November 29,
2023
.
- ^
Heyman, Stephen (November 13, 2013).
"William T. Vollmann: The Self Images of a Cross-Dresser"
.
The New York Times
.
ISSN
0362-4331
. Retrieved
March 4,
2016
.
- ^
"AGNI 66 Table of Contents (2007)"
.
AGNI
Online
.
Boston University
. c. 2008
. Retrieved
July 26,
2009
.
- ^
William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews
. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2009
- ^
"William T. Vollmann papers"
Archived
September 1, 2006, at the
Wayback Machine
, Rare Books & Manuscripts Library, Ohio State University
- ^
Lai, Jennifer (August 2013).
"How the FBI's Poor Reading Skills Led It to Suspect an Acclaimed Author Was the Unabomber"
.
Slate
. Retrieved
July 24,
2014
.
- ^
Vollmann, William T. (September 2013).
"Life as a Terrorist: Undercovering My FBI File"
.
Harper's
.
327
(1960). Harper's Foundation: 39?47
. Retrieved
December 6,
2013
.
(subscription required)
- ^
"William T. Vollmann Against the Tyrannical World"
,
032c
, issue 19 (Summer 2010).
- ^
Hemmingson, Michael A., "William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews" (McFarland, 2009), p. 63
- ^
Hemmingson, Michael (January 10, 2014).
William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews ? Michael A. Hemmingson ? Google Books
. McFarland.
ISBN
9780786454181
. Retrieved
August 1,
2012
.
- ^
Interviewed by Madison Smartt Bell.
"The Art of Fiction No. 163, William T. Vollmann"
.
The Paris Review
. Retrieved
August 1,
2012
.
This was submitted to Steven Moore at Dalkey Archive Press circa 1990; Moore liked it, but publisher John O'Brien turned it down.
- ^
Interview by Terri Saul Tags: William T. Vollmann.
"A Day at William T. Vollmann's Studio"
. Quarterly Conversation
. Retrieved
August 1,
2012
.
- ^
https://rarebirdlit.com/shadows-of-love-shadows-of-loneliness-limited-edition-slipcase-signed-by-william-t-vollmann/
- ^
Cohen, Joshua (October 15, 2013).
"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? William T. Vollmann Dresses in Drag, Finds His Feminist Side"
.
The New York Observer
. Retrieved
July 24,
2014
.
- ^
Holbrook, Stett (September 7, 2016).
"Feature: Heading toward nowhere"
.
Pacific Sun
. Retrieved
October 30,
2016
.
External links
[
edit
]
- William T. Vollmann Collection, 1980?2000
The Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library
- William T. Vollmann Collection, 2003?2004
The Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library
- William T. Vollmann Collection, 2004?2005
The Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library
- William T. Vollmann Collection, 2001?2007
The Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library
- William T. Vollmann Collection, 2008?2010
The Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library
- "A Conversation with William T. Vollmann"
Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, September 15, 2015. Vollmann reading from
The Dying Grass
and in conversation with Professor Brian McHale, The Ohio State University Department of English.
- Profile of Vollmann in the New York Review of Books, December 2005
- TimeOut New York interview
- Profile at The Whiting Foundation
- "Seeing Eye to Eye"
, Vollmann on ethics in photography, in
Bookforum
, Feb/Mar
- Critical essay on Vollmann at
Open Letters
- William Vollmann’s Burqa
by Guy Reynolds, on Vollmann's "literary globalism."
- Madison Smartt Bell (Fall 2000).
"William T. Vollmann, The Art of Fiction No. 163"
.
The Paris Review
. Fall 2000 (156).
- In Conversation: A Modern Imperialist: William T. Vollmann,
The Brooklyn Rail
- You Are Now Entering the Demented Kingdom of William T. Vollmann
, The New Republic, July 24, 2014.
- "Fathers and Crows"
.
Bookworm
(Interview). Interviewed by
Michael Silverblatt
. KCRW. November 1992.
- "The Royal Family"
.
Bookworm
(Interview). Interviewed by
Michael Silverblatt
. KCRW. January 2001.
- "Rising Up and Rising Down"
.
Bookworm
(Interview). Interviewed by
Michael Silverblatt
. KCRW. November 2004.
- "Riding toward Everywhere"
.
Bookworm
(Interview). Interviewed by
Michael Silverblatt
. KCRW. March 2008.
- "Last Stories and Other Stories (Part I)"
.
Bookworm
(Interview). Interviewed by
Michael Silverblatt
. KCRW. August 2014.
- "Last Stories and Other Stories (Part II)"
.
Bookworm
(Interview). Interviewed by
Michael Silverblatt
. KCRW. August 2014.
- Bookslut, an interview with William T. Vollmann
, November 2005.
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