Robert Stone is a famous American novelist. He twice became a finalist of the Pulitzer Prize for his great contribution to modern literature. In his creative works, the author touched on political and social problems. His works are saturated with black humor, plot metaphors and incredible rebellious spirit.
Early biography
Robert Stone was born on August 21, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York. Up to six years, the boy was raised by a mother who suffered from schizophrenia. In 1943, a woman was placed in a Catholic shelter for people with an unstable psyche. Robert had no other relatives, and his father left the family immediately after his birth. Therefore, social services specialists sent the child to an orphanage.
The boy reluctantly went to school and practically did not communicate with his peers. As a teenager, he began to use alcohol and drugs in the company of older friends. Coming to classes, the young man preferred to sleep at the rear desks. During breaks, he often defended his atheistic beliefs in heated discussions with teachers and classmates. Soon he was expelled from school for immoral behavior.
After failures at school, Robert went to work for the navy. Over the next four years, he traveled to the most remote places on the planet. Stone was especially impressed by the long voyages to Antarctica and Egypt. In the future, the author will describe his impressions in the books “Remembering the sixties” and “Skating at dawn”.
In the early 1960s, Robert managed to enter New York University. The fact is that on board the ship the guy constantly read books that he took with him from the city library. The knowledge gained helped him become a student at a leading university. While receiving an education in art and literary creation, Stone worked as a freelance correspondent for New York Daily News. For this publication, he wrote small notes, news, and essays.
Creative career
In 1963, Robert Stone met with a prominent writer Ken Kesey, who invited him to become a member of the literary circle at Stanford University. It was there that the young author met already well-known word masters of that time. A special influence on his subsequent work had Jack Kerouac. Friends repeatedly made bus trips around the suburbs of New York to find new stories for their works.
A little later, in 1967, Stone wrote the novel "Hall of Mirrors", which brought him worldwide fame. In the work, the author reflected the "dark side" of America. He first showed how the US government system wages war against an ordinary person. In this work, Robert Stone sided with American citizens, supporting their advocacy for civil rights and freedoms. Subsequently, the novel received the prestigious William Faulkner Foundation Award.
After publishing the work “Dogs of War” in 1974, the writer became a laureate of the National Book Prize. The author drew the plot for this book from his own life experience. In the early 1970s, he worked as a journalist in Vietnam. In his work, he reflected the experience of the Vietnam War, which led the American nation to new ideals and values. Critics note that Stone was able to most accurately convey what the soldiers really felt when they were on a foreign land.
In 1981, Robert won the first Pulitzer Prize for his work The Flag of the Dawn. The largest publishers in America began to lure the author, offering large fees for his novels. However, in this hype, Stone decided to separate from society in order to develop the concept of his new works. Soon he publishes two popular books, Children of the Light and Damascus Gate, which are still part of the compulsory school curriculum for American students.
In 1997, the writer consolidated his success by receiving the second Pulitzer Prize for the short story collection Bear and His Daughter. And in the early 2000s, he successfully presented the novels "Cove of Souls" and "Death of a Black-haired Girl."
At the age of 72, Stone published his latest storybook, titled “Illness with Problems, ” based on his personal autobiography. Here he first hinted to readers that he was suffering from a serious illness, which was a terrible consequence of smoking.
