Snow White

Life

Donald Barthelme was born in Philadelphia in 1931. His father and mother were fellow students at the University of Pennsylvania. The family moved to Texas two years later and Barthelme's father became a professor of architecture at the University of Houston, where Barthelme would later study journalism. Barthelme won a Scholastic Writing Award in Short Story in 1949, while a student at Lamar High School in Houston.

In 1951, as a student, he wrote his first articles for the Houston Post. Two years later, Barthelme was drafted into the U.S. Army, arriving in Korea on July 27, 1953, the day of the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement, which ended the Korean War. Assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division, he served briefly as the editor of an Army newspaper and the Public Information Office of the Eighth Army before returning to the United States and his job at the Houston Post. Once back, he continued his studies at the University of Houston studying philosophy. Although he continued to take classes until 1957, he never received a degree. He spent much of his free time in Houston's black jazz clubs, listening to musical innovators such as Lionel Hampton and Peck Kelley, an experience that influenced his later writing.[2]

Barthelme's relationship with his father was a struggle between a rebellious son and a demanding father. In later years they would have tremendous arguments about the kinds of literature in which Barthelme was interested and which he wrote. While in many ways his father was avant-garde in art and aesthetics, he did not approve of the postmodern and deconstruction schools.

Barthelme went on to teach for brief periods at Boston University, University at Buffalo, and the City College of New York, where he served as distinguished visiting professor from 1974 to 1975.

His brothers Frederick (born 1943) and Steven (born 1947) are also respected fiction writers.

Personal life

He married four times. His second wife, Helen Moore Barthelme, later wrote a biography entitled Donald Barthelme: The Genesis of a Cool Sound, published in 2001. With his third wife Birgit, a Dane, he had his first child, a daughter named Anne, and near the end of his life, he married Marion (Marion Knox/Barthelme, who died in 2011), with whom he had his second daughter, Katharine. Marion and Donald remained married until his death, in 1989, from throat cancer.[3]


This content is from Wikipedia. GradeSaver is providing this content as a courtesy until we can offer a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it.