Nationality 1: American

Birthdate: 1938

Deathdate: 1988

Raymond Carver was born on May 25, 1938, in Clatskanie, Oregon, the son of Clevie Raymond, a laborer, and Ella Beatrice Raymond, a homemaker. In 1941, the family moved to Yakima, Washington.

Carver's father was a great storyteller and also read aloud to his son. Carver later attributed his desire to become a writer to his father. During adolescence Carver enjoyed fishing, hunting, and baseball, but his main goal was to write. He graduated from Yakima High School in 1956 and the following year married Maryann Burk, who was sixteen years old. By 1958, they had a daughter and a son and had moved to Paradise, California, where Carver entered Chico State College. At Chico, Carver studied under the novelist John Gardner.

For the next decade or so, Carver worked at a series of low-wage jobs, including gas station attendant and hospital cleaner, in order to support...