Wolff, Tobias

(US, 1945– )

Wolff's extraordinary childhood is vividly recreated in his memoir, This Boy's Life (1989). In 1993 the book was made into a film starring Ellen Barkin, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Robert De Niro. Wolff's equally fine autobiographical volume, In Pharoah's Army: Memories of a Lost War (1994), tells of his tour of duty in Vietnam, but he is perhaps best known as a short-story writer. The first collection, Hunters in the Snow (1982), established his reputation as a master of the form: his sharply focused stories capture significant moments in the humdrum lives of American working people. The quality of his writing, with its sparse simplicity and unerring feel for the rhythms of everyday speech, has remained consistently high throughout his next three collections.

Raymond Carver, Richard Ford  BH