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Born in 1938 in an Oregon logging town, Raymond Carver grew up in Yakima, From California he went to Iowa to attend the Iowa Writers Workshop. Soon, however, he returned to California, where he worked at a number of unskilled jobs before obtaining a teaching position. Widely acclaimed as the most important short story writer of his generation, Carver writes about the kind of lower-middle-class people whom he knew growing up. His characters are waitresses, mechanics, postmen, high school teachers, factory workers, door-to-door salesmen who lead drab lives because of limited funds. Critics have said that may have the most distinctive vision of the working class. Nominated posthumously for both a National Book Critics Circle Award (1988) and a Pulitzer Prize (1989) for Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories (1988), Carver is one of a handful of writers credited with reviving the short story form. Some have put Carver in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway and Stephen Crane. Carver's stories tend to be brief, with enigmatic endings, although never erupting. Violence is often just below the surface. An air of quiet desperation pervades his stories, as Carver explores the collapse of human relationships in bleak circumstances. In later works, Carver strikes a note of redemption, unheard at the beginning of his career. But for readers who are not attuned to Carver's voice of resignation, these moments may sound sentimental and unconvincing. Carver died of lung cancer in 1988. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from What We Talk about When We Talk about Love… (more)
Cathedral: Stories 2,921 copies, 96 reviews
Short Cuts: Selected Stories 1,030 copies, 9 reviews
Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories 520 copies, 5 reviews
Collected Stories 504 copies, 9 reviews
All of Us: The Collected Poems 472 copies, 6 reviews
A New Path To The Waterfall (Author) 366 copies, 6 reviews
Elephant and other stories 322 copies, 5 reviews
Beginners 274 copies, 6 reviews
Ultramarine: Poems 185 copies, 2 reviews
The Best American Short Stories 1986 (Editor & Introduction) 92 copies
Tres rosas amarillas 71 copies, 2 reviews
Vidas cruzadas 30 copies
Furious Seasons 28 copies
Voorzichtig 6 copies
Tell It All 5 copies, 1 review
Les feux 3 copies
Grannar 3 copies
Üks hea asi 3 copies
Fever {story} 2 copies
Fat {story} 2 copies
Fogos 2 copies
Boxes {story} 2 copies
[No title] 1 copy
Poésie 1 copy
Thánh đường 1 copy, 1 review
50 digte 1 copy
Night School {story} (Author) 1 copy
For Tess 1 copy
Peresa 1 copy
Kindling 1 copy
The Best American Short Stories of the Century (Contributor) 1,514 copies, 10 reviews
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (Contributor, some editions) 880 copies, 7 reviews
My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead (Contributor) 744 copies, 19 reviews
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (Contributor) 712 copies, 3 reviews
American Gothic Tales (Contributor) 426 copies, 5 reviews
Points of View: Revised Edition (Contributor) 395 copies, 5 reviews
Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories (Contributor) 379 copies, 10 reviews
The Best American Short Stories 2000 (Contributor) 376 copies, 2 reviews
The Granta Book of the American Short Story (Contributor) 362 copies, 1 review
Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories (Contributor) 351 copies, 6 reviews
100 Years of The Best American Short Stories (Contributor) 249 copies, 3 reviews
The New Granta Book of the American Short Story (Contributor) 198 copies, 1 review
Granta 25: The Murderee (Contributor) 157 copies, 1 review
The Best American Short Stories 1988 (Contributor) 154 copies
Granta 68: Love Stories (Contributor) 149 copies, 1 review
Granta 21: The Story-Teller (Contributor) 148 copies, 1 review
The Best American Short Stories 1987 (Contributor) 124 copies
Emergency Kit (Contributor, some editions) 106 copies, 1 review
The Norton Book of Friendship (Contributor) 92 copies
American Short Stories (Contributor, some editions) 87 copies
The Granta Book of the Family (Contributor) 83 copies
The Oxford Book of Travel Stories (Contributor) 72 copies, 1 review
Granta 14: Autobiography (Contributor) 70 copies
Granta 8: Dirty Realism (Contributor) 70 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1983 (Contributor) 69 copies
Great Esquire Fiction (Contributor) 68 copies, 1 review
Granta 147: 40th Birthday Special (Contributor) 46 copies, 1 review
Granta 4: Beyond the Crisis (Contributor) 36 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1982 (Contributor) 26 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1967 (Contributor) 25 copies, 1 review
A Good Man: Fathers and Sons in Poetry and Prose (Contributor) 19 copies, 1 review
Horse Stories (Contributor) 15 copies
20th Century American Short Stories, Volume 1 (Contributor) 15 copies, 1 review
A Vintage Christmas (Vintage Minis) (Contributor) 8 copies, 1 review
Enjoying Stories (Contributor) 2 copies

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