Hawkes, John

Hawkes, John

(John Clendennin Burne Hawkes, Jr.), 1925–98, American writer, b. Stamford, Conn., grad. Harvard, 1949. He taught English at Brown Univ. after 1958. Hawkes is considered one of the most original American writers of the 20th cent. His highly experimental works—complex, ambiguous, and grimly humorous—blend everyday reality with menacing hallucinations. His works include the novels The Lime Twig (1951), Second Skin (1964), Blood Oranges (1971), Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade (1985), and An Irish Eye (1997) as well as The Goose on the Grave (1954), a collection of short fiction.

Bibliography

See studies by P. O'Donnell (1982) and D. J. Greiner (1985).

Hawkes, John (Clendennin Burne, Jr.)

(1925– ) writer, poet, playwright; born in Stamford, Conn. He studied at Harvard (B.A. 1949), worked for Harvard University Press (1949–55), and taught at Harvard (1956–58). He then went to teach at Brown University (1958) and was a visiting professor at many institutions. He published poetry and plays, but is best known for his avant-garde surrealistic narratives, such as Second Skin (1964) and Virginie (1982).