Andre Dubus - America's Chekhov

Andre Dubus was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1936, into a Cajun-Irish Catholic family, and grew up in Bayou country. He grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, and, as a boy, attended Christian Brothers Catholic school. "Catholicism is a major influence on my work," he said. "It pervades my writing."

He obtained his B.A. from McNeese State College in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1958. Dubus then joined the Marine Corps and ascended to the rank of captain. He left the military to study writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop and received an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1965. In 1966 he accepted a teaching position at Bradford College in northeastern Massachusetts - an association that lasted until 1984.

Kurt Vonnegut once hailed Dubus as "one of the world's living masters" of the short story form. His collections include Dancing After Hours [1996] and Meditations from a Movable Chair [1998].

In Meditations, Dubus recorded his grief and self-pity in the years following an accident in July 1986. Dubus had stopped on highway I-93 to help a disabled motorist and was struck by an oncoming car. He did manage to save the life of the woman driver of the first car, but his left leg was amputated above the knee and his right leg was shattered. He spent three years in painful physical therapy before resigning himself to life in a wheelchair.

After the accident, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike and John Irving held a special literary benefit to help cover Dubus' medical bills. Dubus returned to writing and in gratitude for the help of his peers, he held free workshops to encourage local writers in their own efforts.

Dubus received the PEN/Malamud Award, the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Boston Globe's first annual Lawrence L. Winship Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Dubus died at his home in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in February 1999.

In citing Dubus's work, the 1996 Rea Award Jurors, George Garrett, Barry Hannah and Jayne Anne Phillips said:

"We vote the award for short story to Andre Dubus for his conspicuous and enduring chronicles of the American soul. His prose is muscular and trustworthy and, under his hand the form of the story thrives with basic life."

and click here to see (and read about) the other winners of the Rea Award.