Tobias Wolff Best known for his short stories and hisautobiographical writing, Tobias Wolff riveted readers and heldthem fast with This Boy's Life, a groundbreaking literary memoirthat redefined the genre for an entire generation. BiographyAlthough Tobias Wolff has described his own youthful self as a liarand an imposter, he has achieved in his writing a level of honestyso unflinching it is almost painful to read. The author of twogroundbreaking literary memoirs and several volumes ofautobiographical fiction (short and long), Wolff is not justwilling to lay bare his pretenses and self-deceptions; he feels anobligation to do so. Like Rumpelstilskin, he has spun experience,memory, and a remarkable gift for storytelling into literary gold.Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Wolff barely knew his largelyabsent father, a man he and his older brother Geoffrey (also awriter) have described as a con artist and a compulsive liar. Whilehe was still young, Wolff's parents officially split up. Geoffreywent to live with his father; Tobias stayed with his mother, whomoved around from state to state in a steady, westerly progressionthat finally landed them in Washington. Never a good judge ofcharacter where men were concerned, his mother married an abusivemartinet who made her son's life miserable. Wolff recounted hismisspent, miserable youth in This Boy's Life, a groundbreaking 1989memoir that later became a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, EllenBarkin, and Robert De Niro. Wolfe escaped his troubled homeenvironment by falsifying an application to a private boys' schoolin the East and fabricating a resumé so remarkable it got him in.He flunked out before graduating, enlisted in the military, and wassent to Vietnam -- an experience he chronicled in a second memoir,In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War, published in 1994.When he was discharged from service, he visited England, fell inlove with the country, and studied, with the help of tutors, togain entrance to Oxford. He graduated with honors in 1972 andreceived a scholarship to Stanford, where he received his master'sdegree. A three-time winner of the O. Henry Award, Wolff is widelyrespected for his short stories. His first collection, In theGarden of the North American Martyrs, was published in 1981 andreceived rave reviews from such past masters of the genre as AnnieDillard and Joyce Carol Oates. Subsequent anthologies have onlyserved to solidify his reputation as a preternaturally giftedstoryteller. His 1984 novella The Barracks Thief won thePEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; and in 2003, he published his firstnovel, Old School, a shrewdly observed, heavily autobiographicalcoming-of-age tale set in an elite boys' boarding school. Nearly asfamous for his teaching as for his books, Wolff served on thefaculty of Syracuse University for 17 years before accepting aposition at Stanford in 1997 as a professor of English literatureand creative writing. He is also a crackerjack editor and hasshepherded several short story anthologies through to publication.Good To Know Leonardo DiCaprio beat out 400 hopefuls from LosAngeles, New York, Florida, and all places in between to star asTobias Wolff in the film version of This Boy's Life. Separated at ayoung age by their parent's divorce, Tobias and Geoffrey Wolff bothgrew up to become successful writers. Geoffrey's 1979 memoir oflife with his con-artist father is called The Duke of Deception. Inan interview with The Boston Book Review, Tobias Wolfe discussedthe phenomenon of selective memory this way: " Memory is somethingthat you do; it is not something that you have. You remember, andwhen you remember you bring in all the resources of invention,calculation, self-interest and self-protection. Imagination is partof it too." Also Known As: Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff (full name)Hometown: Northern California Date of Birth: 六月 19, 1945 Place ofBirth: Birmingham, Alabama Education: B.A., Oxford University,1972; M.A., Stanford University, 1975