Biographie de John Irving
John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he once admitted that he was a grim child. Although he excelled in English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received encouragement. It was so simple, he remembers. Yount was the first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying.
In 1963, Irving enrolled at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, and he later worked as a university lecturer. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, about a plot to release all the animals from Vienna Zoo, was followed by The Water-Method Man, a comic tale of a man with a urinary complaint, and The 158-Pound Marriage, which exposes the complications of spouse-swapping. Irving achieved international recognition with The World According to Garp, which he hoped would cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts.
The Hotel New Hampshire is a startlingly original family saga, and The Cider House Rules is the story of Doctor Wilbur Larch - saint, obstetrician, founder of an orphanage, ether addict and abortionist - and of his favourite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. A Prayer for Owen Meany features the most unforgettable character he has yet created. A Son of the Circus is an extraordinary evocation of modern day India.
John Irving's latest and most ambitious novels are A Widow for One Year and The Fourth Hand. A collection of John Irving's shorter writing, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, was published in 1993; Irving has also written the screenplays for the The Cider House Rules and A Son of the Circus, and wrote about his experiences in the world of movies in his memoir My Movie Business. John Irving has had a life-long passion for wrestling, and he plays a wrestling referee in the film The World According to Garp.
In his memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend, John Irving writes about his life as a wrestler, a novelist and as a wrestling coach. John Irving has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation; he has won an 0. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Oscar. In 1992 he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
In January 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Irving now writes full-time, has three children and lives in Vermont and Toronto.
