photo of Tobias Wolff by Mark Coggins, 2008

Tobias Wolff (b. 1945)

"To sit for a moment and realize that other human beings have reality is a change for most of us. Most of us operate on the unacknowledged assumption that we are the only real human beings in the world and the only ones who matter. Stories have the power, I think, to suddenly fill us with the knowledge of other lives and with the importance of those lives to the people who lead them."

A selective list of online literary criticism for late-twentieth-century American short story writer, novelist, and memoirist, Tobias Wolff, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars and articles published in peer-reviewed sources

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introduction & biography

"A life in writing: Tobias Wolff." By James Campbell. Biographical article. The Guardian 18 July 2008.

"Tobias Wolff, The Art of Fiction." The Paris Review 183 (Fall 2004).

"Soldiering on." By Christopher Tayler. Overview of Wolff's short stories. The Guardian 1 Aug 2008

"Stifled Truth." By Wyatt Mason. A review of Wolff's Old School. The London Review of Books 5 Feb. 2004

Reader's Guide for Wolff's Old School. Discussion questions for reading groups. From Penguin Publishers.

Goldleaf, Steven. "Tobias Wolff." A substantial introduction to Tobias Wolff from the Literary Encyclopedia [subscription service].

literary criticism

Scofield, Martin. "Winging It: Realism and Invention in the Stories of Tobias Wolff." The Yearbook of English Studies 31 (2001) pp 93-108 [free at jstor].

Lyons, Bonnie; and Bill Oliver. "An Interview with Tobias Wolff." Contemporary Literature 31, 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 1-16 [free at jstor].

Calhoun, Byron. "Tobias Wolff's Search for Heroism." War, Literature & the Arts 22, 1/2 [open access journal].

main page | 20th-c literature | later 20th-c american fiction | about literaryhistory.com

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