John Irving enjoys a rare and prominent place among contemporary American writers not only for having published a string of best-sellers but also for having received accolades from critics in the popular and academic press alike. His status has been...

John Irving was born in Exeter, Massachusetts, the son of F. N. and Frances Winslow Irving. His father was a teacher of Russian history at Exeter Academy, the prep school which Irving attended during his adolescence. There he acquired his lifelong...

One of a few modern best-selling writers who also has literary stature, John Irving (born 1942) rose to prominence in 1979 with his fourth novel, The World According to Garp. His novels have combined 19th century traditions with modern-day melodrama,...

The novels of John Irving have been regular bestsellers ever since The World According to Garp won international acclaim in 1978. Irving's first novel, Setting Free the Bears (1968), established many of the fictional characteristics that would...

John Winslow Irving (born March 2, 1942 as John Wallace Blunt, Jr.) is a bestselling American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in...

When his is sons Colin and Brendan were younger, if John Irving couldn't make time to drive them on their field trips, he would turn to his good friend David Calicchio, who was the only other person he trusted as their chauffeur. Irving...

A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY By John Irving Morrow. 543 pp. $19.95 IT IS PROBABLY not my job to wonder if John Irving has set himself up for a colossal critical pasting by writing A Prayer for Owen Meany, but I would be...

A British oil trader was arrested Thursday on U.S. charges of paying bribes to Saddam Hussein as part of the discredited U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq.Metropolitan Police said John Irving, 52, was detained in central London on a U.S. extradition warrant. He appeared at the...

Reviewing Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men in today's New York Times, reviewer Michiko Kakutani laments that the novel's "lugubrious passages...gain ascendency as the book progresses." And Kakutani knows from ascendant lugubriousness. Six days earlier, the Pulitzer-winning critic labeled John Irving's latest work, Until...

In the following excerpt, Reilly provides an overview of the settings, characters, themes, and literary techniques employed in Irving's fiction.

In the following review, Towers offers praise for A Son of the Circus.

In the following review, Rosenheim offers a generally favorable assessment of The Imaginary Girlfriend.

In "A Prayer for Owen Meany," John Irving's theme is that our destinies are largely planned by God and that we individually fit into God's larger plan like puzzle pieces. Owen Meany is portrayed as symbolic of the Second Coming of Jesus.

In "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving, Owen Meany seems to be the perfect hero. He is brave for what he believes in, loyal to his friends, and compassionate to those he loves. His presence affects and shapes the lives of those around him. The qualities Owen possesses are those we seek out in every hero.