SOURCE: Wolff, Tobias, and Nicholas A. Basbanes. “Tobias Wolff: ‘This Is … My Last Memoir.’” Publishers Weekly 241, no. 43 (24 October 1994): 45-6.

In the following interview, Wolff discusses the craft behind writing his two memoirs, This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War.

The literary form of choice for Tobias Wolff is the short story, and by all accounts he has mastered it admirably. His work has been widely praised and duly recognized with honors including the O. Henry Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Rea Award. This fall, he has also edited The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (Vintage) and guest edited The Best American Short Stories 1994 (Houghton Mifflin).

But it is with two volumes of memoirs, This Boy's Life (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988) and his new In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War, to be released later this month by Knopf (Forecasts...