William Vollmann

William T. Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer and essayist. He was born in Los Angeles in 1959 and currently lives in Sacramento, California. Vollmann was a student at Deep Springs College and Cornell University. While writing his first novel You Bright and Risen Angels, Vollmann worked as a computer programmer. He travelled to Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, writing about the experience in An Afghanistan Picture Show, or, How I Saved the World. He has published travel writing for Spin Magazine as well as The New Yorker, and sometimes contributes to the New York Times Book Review. In early 2004 (after many delays) McSweeneys published Rising Up and Rising Down, a 3,300 page, seven volume treatise on violence which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award; a single-volume condensed version was published at the end of the year by Ecco Press. It represents over 20 years of work and attempts to establish a moral calculus to consider the causes and effects of violence worldwide. Vollmann's other works often deal with the settlement of North America (as in ', a cycle of novels), or stories of people (often prostitutes) on the margins of war, poverty and hope.

Related Topics:
Novel - Journalist - Essay - Los Angeles - 1959 - Sacramento - California - Deep Springs College - Cornell University - Computer programmer - Soviet invasion - Spin Magazine - The New Yorker - New York Times Book Review - McSweeneys - National Book Critics Circle Award - Ecco Press - Prostitute

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