About Tobias Wolff
Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff (born June 19, 1945) is an American short story writer, memoirist, novelist, and teacher of creative writing. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life (1989) and In Pharaoh's Army (1994). He has written four short story collections and two novels including The Barracks Thief (1984), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Wolff received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in September 2015. His academic career began at Syracuse University (1982–1997). Since 1997, he has taught at Stanford University, where he is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. == Life and career == Wolff was born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama, the second son of Rosemary (Loftus) from Hartford, Connecticut, and Arthur Samuels Wolff, an aeronautical engineer who was a son of a Jewish doctor and his wife. His father had become Episcopalian. Wolff did not learn about his father's Jewish roots until he was an adult. Wolff was raised and identifies as Catholic, like his mother.
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