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.[2] Barthelme won a Scholastic Writing Award in Short Story in 1949, while a student at Lamar High School in Houston. (Barthelme also attended St. Thomas Catholic High School in Houston.)[2]
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. While at the university, he started up a literary journal called Forum, which published many future "big names", including Norman Mailer, Walker Percy, Marshall McLuhan, and William H. Gass.[2] Although Barthelme continued to take classes until 1957, he never received a degree.[2] 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.[3]
