Vance Nye Bourjaily was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 17 September 1922, the son of Monte Ferris Bourjaily, a noted newspaper editor and publisher, and Barbara Webb Bourjaily. He attended Bowdoin College, but his stay was interrupted by two years in the American Field Service (1942-1944) and two years in the United States Army (1944-1946). This military service strongly influences the material of his novels. He returned to Bowdoin and graduated in 1947. Bourjaily married Bettina Yensen in 1946, and they have two children.

Bourjaily's varied writing career includes work as a newspaperman, television dramatist, playwright and lecturer. His interests in literature led to his co-founding Discovery (1951), a journal he edited for two years. Since 1957, he has taught at the Writers Workshop of the University of Iowa. During this period, he left Iowa briefly to serve on the United States Department of State mission to South America in 1959 and to be Distinguished...