Gene Wolfe was born in New York City and
raised in Houston, Texas. He spent two and a half years at Texas
A&M, then dropped out and was drafted. He was awarded the
Combat Infantry Badge during the Korean War; afterward he attended
the University of Houston on the GI Bill, earning a degree in
mechanical engineering. His engineering career culminated in the
editorship of the trade journal Plant
Engineering, which he retained until his retirement in
1984.
He first came to prominence as a
science fiction writer as the author of The Fifth
Head of Cerberus (1972); in 1973 The Death
of Doctor Island won a Nebula for the best novella. His
novel Peace won the Chicago Foundation for
Literature Award in 1977; his poem “The Computer Iterates the
Greater Trumps” was awarded the Rhysling for science-fiction
poetry.
His four-volume The
Book of the New Son quickly established itself as a classic
in the field. The first volume, The Shadow of the
Torturer (1980), won the World Fantasy Award and the British
SF Association Award; the second, The Claw of the
Conciliator (1981), won the Nebula Award; the third,
The Sword of the Lictor (1982), won the
Locus Award; the fourth, The Citadel of the
Autarch (1983), won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and
the Prix Apollo. A coda to the sequence, The Urth
of the New Sun, appeared in 1987.
Other novels include Operation Ares (1970); The Devil in a
Forest (1976); Free Live Free (1984);
Soldier in the Mist (1986) and Soldier of Arete (1989); There Are
Doors (1988); Pandora by Holly
Hollander (1990); and Castleview
(1990). His most recent work is the four-volume The
Book of the Long Sun, comprising Nightside
the Long Sun (1993), Lake of the Long
Sun (1994), Caldé of the Long Sun
(1994), and the forthcoming Exodus from the Long
Sun.
His 1988 short story collection
Storeys from the Old Hotel won the World
Fantasy Award; other collections include The Island
of Doctor Death and Other Stories (1980), Endangered Species (1989), and Castle of
Days (which also includes essays).