John Barth

John Simmons Barth (Born 1930) is an American teacher and novelist. His works include The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), Giles Goat-Boy (1966), Chimera (1972), and The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991).^[1]

Life and Works[edit]

Barth was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 27, 1930, and attended Johns Hopkins University.^[2] Upon graduating high school, he attended Julliard School of Music to study jazz, and then attended Johns Hopkins to study in journalism and creative writing.^[3] He wrote his first two novels, The Floating Opera (1956) and The End of the Road (1958) about those who recognize a futility in action.^[4] His first notable novel, The Sot-Weed Factor, describes a poet who wrote a poem by the same name, and illustrates him as an innocent confused with why his poem became a satire about the colonization of Maryland.^[5] Besides writing, he taught at Penn State, SUNY Buffalo, Boston University, and Johns Hopkins.^[6] Penn State was the setting of his mythical satires Giles Goat-Boy and Chimera. He was very popular as a teacher on the Eastern Seaboard.^[7]

He is still alive and continues to produce short stories for a living.

See also[edit]

• Donald Barthelme

References[edit]