The Sportswriter
Encyclopedia
The Sportswriter is a 1986
1986 in literature
The year 1986 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Michael Grade. Controller of BBC One, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.-New books:*Kingsley Amis - The Old Devils...

 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Richard Ford
Richard Ford
Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...

. It is about a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an existential crisis following the death of his son. In 1995, it was followed by a sequel, the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...

-winning Independence Day
Independence Day (novel)
Independence Day is a 1995 novel by Richard Ford and the sequel to Ford's 1986 novel The Sportswriter.It won the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1996, the first novel ever to win both awards in a single year....

. A third installment The Lay of the Land
The Lay of the Land
The Lay of the Land is a 2006 novel by American author Richard Ford. The novel is the third in a trilogy, which began with The Sportswriter and was followed several years later by Independence Day...

followed in 2006.

The book is being made into a six-hour HBO miniseries.

Awards and nominations

The novel became Ford's "breakout book" and was named one of Time magazine's five best books of 1986 and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 2005, Time also named it one of the 100 best novels in English from the preceding 82 years.

External links

  • Richard Ford discusses The Sportswriter on the BBC's World Book Club
    World Book Club
    World Book Club is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her books, often the most well-known one, with the public...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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