Tobias Wolff
Photo by Gilliola Christé

Born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama, Tobias Wolff is the author of two memoirs. The first, This Boy’s Life (1989), won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was adapted into a motion picture featuring Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ellen Barkin. It chronicles Wolff’s difficult childhood living with an abusive and violent stepfather. His second memoir, In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War (1994), is an unflinching account of his military service from 1964-1968, including a tour in Vietnam. Wolff has also written three volumes of short stories, including The Night in Question (1996) and Barracks Thief (1984), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and features a story about paratroopers waiting to be sent to Vietnam. His latest novel, Old School (2003), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and other awards. Wolff is the recipient of two Literature Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Whiting Writers Award. He is the Woods Professor of English and Creative Writing at Stanford University.

A shell exploded somewhere outside. We hit the deck, our mouths twisted in dire grins. Two more went off almost together. They weren’t very close, but I felt the shock in my chest. We waited for the next one. Then we stood up again, very, very slowly.

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