沃尔特·特维斯

沃尔特·特维斯（英语：Walter Tevis，1928年2月28日—1984年8月9日）是一名美国小说家，他的三篇小说《江湖浪子》、《金钱本色》和《掉到地球上的人》被改编为电影，还有一部小说《后翼弃兵》被改编为迷你剧《后翼弃兵》并于2020年在网飞上播出。

特维斯于1984年8月9日因肺癌去世，享年56岁。

作品

《江湖浪子》（1959）

《掉到地球上的人》（1963）

《Mockingbird》（1980）

《The Steps of the Sun》（1983）

《后翼弃兵》（1983）

《金钱本色》（1984）

Walter Stone Tevis Jr. (February 28, 1928 – August 9, 1984) was an American novelist and screenwriter. Three of his six novels were adapted into major films: The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth. A fourth, The Queen’s Gambit, was adapted into a miniseries with the same title and shown on Netflix in 2020. His books have been translated into at least 18 languages.

Early life

Tevis was born in San Francisco, California, in 1928 to Anna Elizabeth "Betty" (née Bacon) and Walter Stone Tevis, an appraiser, growing up in the Sunset District, across the street from Golden Gate Park. His sister, Betty, was born in 1925.

He developed a rheumatic heart condition, so his parents placed him in the Stanford Children's Convalescent home (where he was given heavy doses of phenobarbital), for a year, during which time they returned to Kentucky, where the Tevis family had been given an early land grant in Madison County. Walter traveled across country alone by train at age 11 to rejoin his family in Kentucky. He made friends with Toby Kavanaugh, a fellow high school student, and learned to shoot pool in the Kavanaugh mansion in Lawrenceburg. In the library there, he read science fiction for the first time. They remained lifelong friends. Kavanaugh later became the owner of a pool room in Lexington, which would have an impact on Tevis's writing.

Tevis joined the Navy on his seventeenth birthday. He became a carpenter's mate, serving on the USS Hamul in Okinawa.

After his discharge, he graduated from Model Laboratory School in Kentucky in 1945. He entered the University of Kentucky, where he received B.A. (1949) and M.A. (1954) degrees in English literature and studied with A. B. Guthrie Jr., the author of The Big Sky. While a student there, Tevis worked in a pool hall and published a story about pool written for Guthrie's class. He later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received an MFA in creative writing in 1960.

After graduation, Tevis wrote for the Kentucky Highway Department. He taught classes in fields from the sciences and English to physical education in small-town Kentucky high schools in Science Hill, Hawesville, Irvine, and Carlisle. He also taught at Northern Kentucky University, the University of Kentucky, and Southern Connecticut State University.

Tevis taught English literature and creative writing at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, from 1965 to 1978, where he was named University Professor. Tevis was a member of the Authors Guild.

Career

Short stories

Tevis wrote more than two dozen short stories for a variety of magazines. "The Big Hustle," his pool hall story for Collier's (August 5, 1955), was illustrated by Denver Gillen. It was followed by short stories in The American Magazine, Bluebook, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Galaxy Science Fiction, Playboy, Redbook and The Saturday Evening Post.

Novels

His first novel, The Hustler, was published by Harper & Row in 1959. Tevis followed it with The Man Who Fell to Earth, published in 1963. Tevis drew from elements of his childhood in The Man Who Fell to Earth, as noted by James Sallis, writing in The Boston Globe: