John Irving | Academy of Achievement

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He published his first novel when he was 26, and won the National Book Award for The World According to Garp in 1980. Since then, every one of his novels has been an international bestseller, including The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. As a boy, John Irving struggled with dyslexia. While other young people with this obstacle might have turned away from books and reading, the necessity of struggling over every word had the opposite effect on Irving; it taught him a deep respect for the power of language. After graduating from the master of fine arts creative writing program at the University of Iowa, where he studied with Kurt Vonnegut, Irving taught English and writing at Windham College and Mt. Holyoke. For years, Irving balanced his imaginative undertakings with a grueling physical discipline. He wrestled competitively for 20 years, and continued to coach the sport in prep schools long after achieving success as a writer. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He plays an active role in the adaptation of his books to the screen, winning an Oscar for the screenplay of The Cider House Rules."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="John Irving | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">Readers around the world have embraced the vivid characters who tumble through the intricately imagined tales of John Irving. He published his first novel when he was 26, and won the National Book Award for <i>The World According to Garp</i> in 1980. Since then, every one of his novels has been an international bestseller, including <i>The Hotel New Hampshire</i>, <i>The Cider House Rules</i> and <i>A Prayer for Owen Meany</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">As a boy, John Irving struggled with dyslexia. While other young people with this obstacle might have turned away from books and reading, the necessity of struggling over every word had the opposite effect on Irving; it taught him a deep respect for the power of language. After graduating from the master of fine arts creative writing program at the University of Iowa, where he studied with Kurt Vonnegut, Irving taught English and writing at Windham College and Mt. Holyoke.</p> <p class="inputText">For years, Irving balanced his imaginative undertakings with a grueling physical discipline. He wrestled competitively for 20 years, and continued to coach the sport in prep schools long after achieving success as a writer. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He plays an active role in the adaptation of his books to the screen, winning an Oscar for the screenplay of <i>The Cider House Rules</i>.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2021-02-19T17:36:18+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/","name":"John Irving | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2016-08-26T22:49:35+00:00","dateModified":"2021-02-19T17:36:18+00:00","description":"Readers around the world have embraced the vivid characters who tumble through the intricately imagined tales of John Irving. He published his first novel when he was 26, and won the National Book Award for The World According to Garp in 1980. Since then, every one of his novels has been an international bestseller, including The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules and\u00a0A Prayer for Owen Meany. As a boy, John Irving struggled with dyslexia. While other young people with this obstacle might have turned away from books and reading, the necessity of struggling over every word had the opposite effect on Irving; it taught him a deep respect for the power of language. After graduating from the master of fine arts creative\u00a0writing program at the University of Iowa, where he studied with Kurt Vonnegut, Irving taught English and writing at Windham College and Mt. Holyoke. For years, Irving balanced his imaginative undertakings with a grueling physical discipline. He wrestled competitively for 20 years, and continued to coach the sport in prep schools long after achieving success as a writer. 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[(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">John Irving</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">National Book Award</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" 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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/creative-writing/id548051366?mt=13" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/256X256-creativewriting-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/creative-writing/id548051366?mt=13" target="_blank"> Download our free multi-touch iBook <i>Creative Writing: Learning from the Masters</i> — available on Apple Books </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>Creative Writing: Learning from the Masters</i> provides readers with a window into the extraordinary world of writing fiction. This interactive iBook produced by the Academy of Achievement gives aspiring writers a unique look at how fiction is created by six admired and successful authors.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving_WhatItTakes_256x256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">The building of the architecture of a novel — the craft of it — is something I never tire of.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Wrestling Life Into Fable</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 2, 1942 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p class="inputtextfirst">John Irving was born John Wallace Blunt, Jr. in Exeter, New Hampshire during World War II. At the time of his birth, his father was serving as an airman in the Pacific. His parents divorced when he was only two years old. He was renamed John Winslow Irving when his mother re-married in 1948, and he grew up without ever meeting his biological father.</p> <figure id="attachment_19435" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19435" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19435 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19435 size-full lazyload" alt="American novelist John Irving has traveled many times to Europe, in particular London and Vienna, and has been a literature lecturer at many American universities. March 6, 1980. (Sophie Bassouls/CORBIS SYGMA)" width="2280" height="1492" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002-380x249.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002-760x497.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19435" class="wp-caption-text">March 1980: American novelist John Irving has traveled many times to Europe, in particular, London and Vienna, and has been a literature lecturer at many American universities. Irving achieved critical and popular claim after the international success of his novel, <em>The World According to Garp,</em> in 1978. (Sophie Bassouls/CORBIS SYGMA)</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">As a boy, John Irving was notably withdrawn, a characteristic he attributes not to unhappiness but to an inborn love of solitude that he believes has served him well as a writer. He read with difficulty, a learning disorder that today would probably be characterized as dyslexia. In spite of this, he became an enthusiastic reader and student of literature. As a student at the Philips Exeter Academy, where his stepfather taught Russian history, John Irving began to wrestle competitively, a sport he credits with teaching him discipline and perseverance.</p> <p class="inputtext">Irving left the University of Pittsburgh after one year and moved to Vienna, Austria. He studied at the University of Vienna and roamed Europe on a motorcycle, absorbing many of the experiences that would later find their way into his novels. After returning to the United States, he enrolled in the University of New Hampshire, and graduated in 1965. He married while still an undergraduate, and became a father at 23. Already set on a writing career, he earned a master of fine arts degree from the creative writing program at the University of Iowa, where his instructors included Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.</p> <figure id="attachment_20809" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20809" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20809 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-20809 size-full lazyload" width="2280" height="3491" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1-248x380.jpg 248w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1-496x760.jpg 496w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-20809" class="wp-caption-text">May 2, 1989: John Irving in the Netherlands. In 1985, Irving published <em>The Cider House Rules</em>. An epic novel set in a Maine orphanage, its central topic is abortion. Many drew parallels between the novel and Charles Dickens’ <em>Oliver Twist</em>. Irving’s next novel was <em>A Prayer for Owen Meany</em> (1989), another New England family epic about religion set in a New England boarding school and in Toronto. The novel was influenced by <em>The Tin Drum</em> by Günter Grass, and “the plot contains further allusions to <em>The Scarlet Letter </em>by Nathaniel Hawthorne. <em>Owen Meany</em> became Irving’s best-selling book since<em> Garp</em>, and is now a frequent feature on high school English reading lists.” (Rob Bogaerts)</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">After completing his graduate degree in 1967, Irving returned to New England with his growing family, and took a job as Assistant Professor of English at Windham College in Vermont. His first novel, <i>Setting Free the Bears</i>, published when he was 26, drew on his European experiences for a darkly comic story of two students who conspire to liberate the animals from the Vienna zoo. Inspired by an actual incident from the last days of World War II, it introduced many of the themes and techniques he has explored throughout his career: the disasters of history and the capriciousness of fate, dramatized through interlocking stories within stories. He was approached to adapt his novel for the screen, in collaboration with director Irving Kershner. Although nothing came of the project, it was not to be John Irving’s last encounter with Hollywood. In the meanwhile, his academic earnings were augmented by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.</p> <figure id="attachment_19440" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19440" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19440 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19440 size-full lazyload" alt="TIME cover with author John Irving, August 31, 1981. (Photo by Shyla Irving/Time Magazine/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="3026" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10-286x380.jpg 286w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10-573x760.jpg 573w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19440" class="wp-caption-text">TIME cover with the author John Irving, August 31, 1981. (Shyla Irving/Time Magazine/Time & Life Pictures/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Irving’s second novel, <i>The Water-Method Man</i>, published in 1972, revisited the Austrian locale of <i>Setting Free the Bears</i>, while also satirizing academic life in America. That same year, Irving was appointed Writer-in-Residence at the University of Iowa. Irving’s 1974 novel, <i>The 158-Pound Marriage</i>, was more narrowly focused than his previous efforts, concentrating on the erotic intrigues of two couples in an American university setting. Its title plays on a term from the world of wrestling, a sport in which Irving continued to compete as an adult. While at the University of Iowa, Irving received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1975, Irving took a job as Assistant Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. The move back to New England was a welcome one; he has kept a home in the region ever since. While teaching at Mount Holyoke, Irving received additional support from the Guggenheim Foundation, and served as Writer-in-Residence at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Although Irving’s first three novels were well-received critically, popular success had eluded him for a decade. The publication of his fourth novel was to change his life irrevocably. <i>The World According to Garp</i> featured, as its protagonist, an author whose stories comment on his own life and on the book itself, and involve him with a set of dizzyingly eccentric characters, besieged by hostile fate. First published in 1978, <i>Garp</i> received ecstatic reviews and sold prodigiously. It won its author a loyal worldwide audience. Passed over for the National Book Award in 1979, it was honored in 1980 when the National Book Foundation granted separate awards for fiction in hardcover and paperback. Since the international success of <i>Garp</i>, every book Irving has written has been a bestseller. Although success freed Irving to write full-time, he did not choose to cloister himself in his study. After completing the last of his Writer-in-Residence appointments, this one at Brandeis University, he coached wrestling at prep schools for most of the 1980s, while writing the most popular literary novels of the decade.</p> <figure id="attachment_19439" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19439" style="width: 2048px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19439 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19439 size-full lazyload" alt="Author John Irving holds his Oscar for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Published, for <i>The Cider House Rules</i>, at the 72nd Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, March 26, 2000. (Scott Nelson/AFP/Getty Images)" width="2048" height="1788" data-sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10-380x332.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10-760x664.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19439" class="wp-caption-text">Author John Irving holds his Oscar for Best Screenplay “Based on Material Previously Published,” for <i>The Cider House Rules</i>, at the 72nd Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, March 26, 2000. (Scott Nelson/AFP/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">Like <i>The World According to Garp</i>, Irving’s next novel, <i>The Hotel New Hampshire</i> (1981), presented a cast of vividly imagined eccentric characters. <i>The Cider House Rules</i> (1985) is set in Maine in the early decades of the 20th century, at an orphanage presided over by a kindly, ether-addicted obstetrician and abortionist. This book threw Irving into the thick of the debate over abortion in America. Irving’s own pro-choice position was informed in part by the life and writings of his adoptive grandfather, a prominent obstetrician and gynecologist. Questions of religion, morality and the randomness of fate figure strongly in Irving’s next work, <i>A Prayer for Owen Meany</i> (1989), in which a foul ball hit by a small boy in a Little League game kills a spectator, the mother of the boy’s teammate.</p> <figure id="attachment_19437" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19437" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19437 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19437 size-full lazyload" alt="Author John Irving with his youngest son, Everett, at home in Vernon, Vermont, June 2001. (Photo by Ellingag/All Over Press Norway/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="1485" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10-380x248.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10-760x495.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19437" class="wp-caption-text">June 2001: John Irving with his youngest son, Everett, at home in Vernon, Vermont. Irving was born John Wallace Blunt, Jr, the son of Helen Frances and John Wallace Blunt, Sr., a writer and executive recruiter. The couple parted during pregnancy. Irving grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire, as the stepson of a Phillips Exeter Academy faculty member, Colin Irving. John Irving was in the Phillips Exeter wrestling program both as a student-athlete and as an assistant coach, and wrestling features prominently in his books and life. Irving’s biological father, whom he never met <span class="st" data-hveid="41" data-ved="0ahUKEwja2MeMhvLRAhWs5oMKHcWrCVAQ4EUIKTAB">—</span> even if his father was, from time to time and on purpose, attending his son’s wrestling competitions <span class="st" data-hveid="41" data-ved="0ahUKEwja2MeMhvLRAhWs5oMKHcWrCVAQ4EUIKTAB">—</span> had been an Army Air Forces pilot during World War II. His career as a writer began at the age of 26 with his first novel.</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext"><i>The World According to Garp</i> was made into a successful film, released in 1982. A film adaptation of <i>The Hotel New Hampshire</i> followed quickly. <i>A Prayer for Owen Meany</i> was filmed under the title <i>Simon Birch</i> in 1998. Filming <i>The Cider House Rules</i> proved to be a more challenging undertaking. In his book <i>My Movie Business</i>, Irving recounts that it took “two producers, four directors, 13 years, and uncounted rewrites” to bring the book to the screen. It was worth the wait. The film, finally directed by Lasse Hallstrom, was both a critical and a popular success. Irving wrote the screenplay himself, and received the 2000 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Irving’s novel <i>A Widow for One Year</i> (1998) was the next of his works to be adapted. In 2004, a film version was released, entitled <i>A Door in the Floor</i>.</p> <figure id="attachment_6549" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6549" style="width: 1449px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-6549 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-6549 lazyload" alt="" width="1449" height="988" data-sizes="(max-width: 1449px) 100vw, 1449px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209.jpg 1449w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209-380x259.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209-760x518.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-6549" class="wp-caption-text">Author John Irving with Dr. Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders and a Nobel Prize laureate, at the Banquet of the Golden Plate reception during the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City.</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">In the 1990s, Irving’s work became increasingly dark and complex, and the intricacy of his plots drew frequent comparison to the work of Charles Dickens. <i>A Son of the Circus</i> (1994) introduces us to an East Indian doctor, now living in Canada, and immerses us in his memories of childhood in a traveling circus in rural India, a surreal dream world of freaks and wonder-workers. In <i>The Fourth Hand</i> (2001), also set partly in India, a photojournalist loses his hand in an accident and receives the world’s first hand transplant. Complications ensue when the widow of the hand’s donor insists on visitation rights with her deceased husband’s hand. In <i>Until I Find You</i> (2004), a successful actor recalls a childhood spent searching for his church organist father in the tattoo parlors of Northern Europe. During the writing of this book, Irving was contacted for the first time by a half-brother he had never met, and at last learned something of the life and character of the father he never knew. His 2009 novel, <i>Last Night in Twisted River</i>, set in the logging country of northern New Hampshire, also treats the complex relations of fathers and sons.</p> <figure id="attachment_19432" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19432" style="width: 1536px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19432 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19432 size-full lazyload" alt="Awards Council member Naomi Judd presents the Golden Plate Award to John Irving at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement)" width="1536" height="1024" data-sizes="(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19432" class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member Naomi Judd presents the Golden Plate Award to John Irving at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York. Banquet of the Golden Plate ceremonies were held at Waldorf Astoria Hotel.</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">Apart from his novels, Irving has published a collection of short stories, <i>Trying to Save Piggy Sneed</i>, including a “miniature autobiography,” <i>The Imaginary Girlfriend</i>, embodying his reflections on writing and wrestling. Throughout his work, he has expressed a warm affection for humanity in all its astounding variety, and a deep admiration for the courage and good humor of men, women and children in confronting the cruelties and catastrophes of life. Among other subjects, he has displayed a continuing interest in themes of marriage and family life. Although his own first marriage ended in 1981, he married his literary agent, Janet Turnbull, in 1987 and began a second family. Today, John Irving and his family live in Vermont and in Toronto. He continues to write novels and to adapt his previous works for motion pictures. Around the world, readers eagerly await his next book, but his past works have long since established him as a master storyteller and comic genius of our age.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2005 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.writer">Writer</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.author">Author</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.novelist">Novelist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 2, 1942 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">Readers around the world have embraced the vivid characters who tumble through the intricately imagined tales of John Irving. He published his first novel when he was 26, and won the National Book Award for <i>The World According to Garp</i> in 1980. Since then, every one of his novels has been an international bestseller, including <i>The Hotel New Hampshire</i>, <i>The Cider House Rules</i> and <i>A Prayer for Owen Meany</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">As a boy, John Irving struggled with dyslexia. While other young people with this obstacle might have turned away from books and reading, the necessity of struggling over every word had the opposite effect on Irving; it taught him a deep respect for the power of language. After graduating from the master of fine arts creative writing program at the University of Iowa, where he studied with Kurt Vonnegut, Irving taught English and writing at Windham College and Mt. Holyoke.</p> <p class="inputText">For years, Irving balanced his imaginative undertakings with a grueling physical discipline. He wrestled competitively for 20 years, and continued to coach the sport in prep schools long after achieving success as a writer. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He plays an active role in the adaptation of his books to the screen, winning an Oscar for the screenplay of <i>The Cider House Rules</i>.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/U94RySs5nPU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=1750&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_10_52_10.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_10_52_10.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Wrestling Life Into Fable</h2> <div class="sans-2">New York City</div> <div class="sans-2">June 3, 2005</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What was your childhood like, growing up in Exeter, New Hampshire?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: It was reasonably secluded, largely happy, but there was a mystery in it that I think provoked my imagination.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/talLrPCxGc0?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_14_42_22.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_14_42_22.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin — only four years older than I am — everything, or what little I could discover about him. I mistakenly thought that he and my mother were married and divorced before I was born. As it turned out, I was born in 1942, and my parents didn’t divorce until 1944, when I was two. But I was born with that father’s name, John Wallace Blunt, Jr., and it probably was a gift to my imagination that my mother wouldn’t talk about him, because when information of that kind is denied to you as a child, you begin to invent who your father might have been, and this becomes a secret, a private obsession, which I would say is an apt description of writing novels and screenplays, of making things up in lieu of knowing the real answer.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="inputtext">I was 39 and divorcing my first wife when my mother deposited on my dining room table some letters from my father which were written from an air base in India and from hospitals in India and China in 1943. He was a flyer, he flew the Himalayan route, as it was called. He and his crew were shot down over Japanese-occupied Burma and hiked for 15 days, some 225 miles into China. The letters were all patiently, painstakingly explaining to her why he didn’t want to remain married to her, but that he hoped to have some contact with me. My mom never permitted him that contact.</p> <p class="inputtext">In 1948, when I was six, she remarried, and my stepfather, Colin Irving, legally adopted me, so that my name was changed from John Wallace Blunt, Jr., to John Winslow Irving, Winslow being my mom’s maiden name. And the mystery continued.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/MGI5V46G6Rc?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_14_47_21.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_14_47_21.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">I think it probably is the most central or informative part of my childhood, is what I didn’t know about it. And as friends and critics have been saying of my novels for some time, I’ve been inventing that missing parent, that absent father, in one novel after another. It was both a surprise, but an easing of a burden when, in the middle of the novel I just finished — which I began in 1998 and finished only this spring — in 2002, in December of 2002, in the middle of that book, which was, once again, a “missing father” novel, I was contacted by a 39-year-old man named Chris Blunt, who said, “There’s a possible chance that I might be your brother.” And of course, I knew it was not a possible chance at all, but a likelihood. And I since have met two brothers and a sister I didn’t know about, and I found out more about this man who died five years before Chris found me. And the coincidences of the father I was imagining — who was waiting for me to finish my story in the last two chapters of this novel — the actual father turned out to have some similarities to the man I had already imagined.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_19438" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19438" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19438 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19438 size-full lazyload" alt="Author John Irving at home, January 1989. (Photo by Kimberly Butler/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="1487" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10-380x248.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10-760x496.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19438" class="wp-caption-text">January 1989: Author John Irving at home in Vermont. (Photo by Kimberly Butler/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">Not as surprising as you might think, given the fact that when you’re a kid and you don’t know about someone, it’s natural to demonize him. In other words, if no one would talk about this guy, how bad a guy was he? There must have been something wrong with him or people would have talked to me. At least that’s always the way my imagination runs. Imagine the worst, right? Imagine the worst.</p> <p class="inputtext">Well, it was nice to hear from these two brothers and my one sister that they loved him, that they thought he was a good father, although he was married four times and had children with three of those wives, not the fourth. It was astonishing for the first time to see, in my late 50’s, early 60’s, which I was at the time, photographs of my father when he’s younger than my grown children are today. I have a 40-year-old son and a 36-year-old son, and I’m looking at pictures of Lieutenant John Wallace Blunt when he’s 24, with his flight crew in China. And he doesn’t look like me, to my eyes, although he does. What he really looks like is one of my kids. He so much more closely resembles them than he does me.</p> <p class="inputtext"><b>Aside from stimulating your imagination, did this impact your childhood in other ways? Were you a good kid?</b></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/7SxreQq3qRo?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_29_05_23.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_29_05_23.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">John Irving: I was a moody kid. I was an aloof kid, I kind of kept to myself. I think that an early sort of pre-writing indication that I had the calling to be a writer was how much time I liked to spend alone. I wasn’t anti-social. I had friends, but I didn’t really want to hang out with them after school. What I saw of them at school was enough. I needed to be in a room by myself even before I was writing, just imagining things, just thinking about things. If there was a weekend with too many cousins or other people around, I got a little edgy. I think the need to be by myself, which I’ve recognized in a couple of my own children, is one that was respected by my grandmother, with whom I lived until my mom remarried, as I told you, when I was six. And I was fortunate to be in a big house, my grandmother’s house, and there were lots of places to get off by yourself and imagine those things that I didn’t know. And I find — I’m 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn’t diminished any. That’s the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_19443" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19443" style="width: 883px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19443 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19443 size-full lazyload" alt="John Irving, January 1990. (Marion Ettlinger/Corbis)" width="883" height="1280" data-sizes="(max-width: 883px) 100vw, 883px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588.jpg 883w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588-262x380.jpg 262w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588-524x760.jpg 524w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19443" class="wp-caption-text">January 1990: John Irving has had four novels reach <span class="st">No.1</span> on the best-seller list of <em>The New York Times</em>: <em>The Hotel New Hampshire</em> (1981), which stayed <span class="st">No.1</span> for seven weeks, <em>The Cider House Rules</em> (1985), <em>A Widow for One Year</em> (1998), and <em>The Fourth Hand</em> (2001). Five of his novels have been adapted to motion pictures. (Marion Ettlinger)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>When did you know that you wanted to be a writer, a novelist?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: Well, before I went to college anyway.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/E_Hl_J4V6lQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=121&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_10_50_26.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_10_50_26.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">When I was still in prep school —14, 15 — I started keeping notebooks, journals. I started writing, almost like landscape drawing or life drawing. I never kept a diary, I never wrote about my day and what happened to me, but I described things. If I had known how to draw, maybe I would have drawn hundreds of pictures of my grandmother’s garden, but instead I wrote sort of landscape descriptions of it. I think that was what was so compelling to me about those Dickens and Hardy novels. Just the lushness of detail, the amount of description, the amount of atmosphere that is plumped into those novels. It’s like nothing you read today, except from those writers who are essentially 19th century storytellers themselves: the Canadian, Robertson Davies; the German, Günter Grass; Garcia Marquez; Salman Rushdie. Basically old fashioned 19th century plot-driven storytellers. Among my contemporaries, I still like the old fashioned ones. Some exceptions, to be sure. I mean Graham Greene is such a good storyteller that I forgive him for being as modern as he is. But I was never a Hemingway person. I never understood that. <i>Moby Dick</i>, there was a story. The longer, the better. I remember kids who were reading <i>Moby Dick</i> in a class and would be just complaining about, “Do we have to know everything about the whaling industry? Do we have to read about the blubber and all the rest of it?” I couldn’t get enough of it, you know. I couldn’t get enough of it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_19431" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19431" style="width: 1536px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19431 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19431 size-full lazyload" alt="John Irving speaks to Academy student delegates and members at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement)" width="1536" height="1024" data-sizes="(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031.jpg 1536w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19431" class="wp-caption-text">John Irving speaks to Academy delegates and members at 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York.</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext"><b>For someone who doesn’t understand what a writer does, or how it happens, how would you explain what you do and how you do it?</b></p> <p class="inputtext">John Irving: Well, I’ve always been patient.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/RXK_BAnW8rU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=113&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_14_00_02.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_14_00_02.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">I don’t begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don’t mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey. Or is it a melancholic story? Is there something uplifting or not about it? Is it soulful? Is it mournful? Is it exuberant? What is the language that describes the end of the story? And I don’t want to begin something, I don’t want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it’s my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you. Do I begin at the beginning chronologically? Sometimes. Or is it the kind of story that’s better to jump into in the middle and go backwards and forwards at the same time? I am a person who just can’t make those judgments — I can’t come to those decisions — unless I know what’s waiting for me at the end. What makes this story worth the five years it’s going to take me to write it? What is emotionally compelling enough at the end of this novel? What’s waiting for you that’s going to move you at the end of this story? That makes a reader tolerate how long and complicated and at times difficult it’s going to be? And so I always go there. I write those end notes as if they were two pieces of music, so I know what I’m going to hear at the end of the story. I know what the sentences themselves, what they’re going to sound like, and I put them in a log. You know? And they’re waiting for me, and I know I’m not going to get to that part of the story for four, five — in the case of this most recent novel, seven years, but it’s important to me that I hear it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_19434" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19434" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19434 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19434 size-full lazyload" alt="John Irving during a visit to Barcelona, May 2016. (Ester Roig)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051825im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19434" class="wp-caption-text">May 2016: John Irving during a visit to Barcelona. In 1964, John Irving married Shyla Leary, whom he had met at Harvard in 1963 while taking a summer course. They had two sons, Colin and Brendan, and divorced in the early 1980s. In 1987, he married Janet Turnbull, who had been his book publisher. They have a son, Everett. John Irving was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007 and subsequently had a radical prostatectomy. (Photo by: Ester Roig)</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">In <i>The World According to Garp</i>, “We are all terminal cases” was the first sentence I wrote, the last sentence of the book. “Oh God, please give him back, I shall keep asking you,” in a <i>A Prayer for Owen Meany</i>, was the first sentence I wrote. The whole novel is a prayer, but what’s the prayer at the end? What is the narrative? Why he wants him back. I have to know those things.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051825if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/TRTlQf55bik?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=66&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_10_50_26.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-John-2005-MasterEdit.00_10_50_26.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">I think working my way through that process, begin with the end and then work your way back to where you began. Sometimes that’s a year, sometimes it’s 18 months, where all I’m doing is taking notes. I’m reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is. Now people always ask me, “Well surely something changes. Surely somewhere along the way you get a better idea.” In the sequence of events in the middle of the story, that’s often true. Sometimes a character I had never thought of — a minor character or a major/minor one— will make an appearance in the middle of the story and move the story in a slightly different way. But the ending never changes. It never has. Eleven novels, it never has changed. I might fool around with that first sentence over time, but I won’t fool around with the last. It’s as clear as a note of music. It is where I’m going.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>I could no more imagine writing a novel without knowing those things then I could imagine coming home from the airport and saying to my wife, “An amazing thing just happened when I landed,” if I didn’t know what it was. I’m not that good a pathological liar to pull that one off.</p> <p><strong>Were you a good student?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: No, I wasn’t. At the time, they didn’t have the language for it that we have perhaps an over-abundance of today. Dyslexia, learning disabilities, whatever they are. I had something of that nature and never knew I had it until one of my children was diagnosed as being slightly dyslexic, and when they showed me the results of how they determined that he had a learning disability, I realized that they were describing exactly what I had always done. What it amounted to, in essence, was that I would ask my friends, “How long did the history assignment take you? How long did the English assignment take you?” And if they said, “Oh, it’s 45 minutes,” I would just double the time, or triple the time, and I’d say, “Well, it’s an hour and a half for me.” I just knew that everything was going to take me longer. Right?</p> <p>I don’t think that’s a bad disability to have if you’re going to write long novels. There’s no reason you should write any novel quickly. There’s no reason you shouldn’t, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly. More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn’t say I have a talent that’s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina. I can rewrite sentences over and over again, and I do. And the reshaping of something — the restructuring of a story, the building of the architecture of a novel — the craft of it is something I never tire of. And maybe that comes from what homework always was to me, which was redoing, redoing, redoing. Because I always made mistakes, and I always assumed I would. And that meant that my grades weren’t very good, and that meant that school was hard for me. But when I got out of school and my focus could go to the one thing I wanted to do, the novel, the screenplay of the moment, I knew how to work. I knew how to concentrate, because I had to.</p> <p><strong>Were there books that were important to you?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: Very. Yeah. John Irving: I read Charles Dickens when I was 14 or 15. It might be hard for many 14, 15-year-olds today to read Dickens. That language seems so old fashioned, if not exactly dated, to us now — the amount of detail, the sheer complexities of those stories and plots. But those were the novels I read that made me want to write novels. If I had read, frankly, some more modern or post-modern novels at the time, I might have wanted to do something else. I’ve always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story. Those old 19th century novels, all of them long, all of them complicated, all of them plotted. Not just Dickens, but especially Dickens, but also George Eliot, Thomas Hardy. And among the Americans, Melville and Hawthorne always meant more to me than Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald. I’m not a modern guy.</p> <p><strong>What does it take to be a writer? What is the writer’s life like?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: You’ve got to be disciplined. I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14… I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write. There’s a kind of repetition that’s required. In any of the martial arts, and in some other sports as well, but especially in the martial arts sports, you repeat and repeat over and over again the dumbest things, the simplest moves, the simplest defenses, until they become like second nature. But they don’t start out that way. They don’t start out that way. And I think what I’ve always recognized about writing is that I don’t put much value in so-called inspiration. The value is in how many times you can redo something. The value is in the importance of the refrain. The third time you repeat something, it has more resonance than the second time you repeat something, if it’s good enough to begin with. Right?</p> <p>So much of a sport like wrestling is drilling, is just repeating and repeating and repeating, so that you’ve done this thing so many times that if somebody just touches your arm on that side, you know where to go. You could do it with your eyes closed. If you’re off your feet and you’re up in the air, if you’ve been there enough, you know where the mat is. You know it’s here, it’s not there. You just know where it is. You don’t have to see it, but you’ve been through that position enough so that you’re not looking for the mat. You’re not thinking, “Is it up here? Is it down there? Am I going to land on my head? Am I going to land on my tail?” You know? I think sentences are like that. If you’re comfortable enough with all kinds of sentences, with verbs and their gerundive, with active verbs, with short sentences, with long sentences, you know how to put them together. You know how to slow the reader down when the reader is at a place where you want the reader to move slowly, and you know how to speed the reader up when you’re at a place in the story where you want the reader to go fast. And it’s drilling, it’s repetition. Most people would find it boring, like sit-ups, you know? Like skipping rope. But I always had — I could put my mind somewhere else while I skipped rope for 45 minutes. You know, people think you have to be dumb to skip rope for 45 minutes. No, you have to be able to imagine something else. While you’re skipping rope, you have to be able to see something else. You have to imagine that your next opponent stopped skipping rope 15 minutes ago. Then you keep going.</p> <p><strong>How did your first novel come about? Did you imagine that before it happened?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: In that case, because it was a historical novel and I knew the history, I was cheating a little bit, because of course I knew how it was going to end up. There was an interesting story at the end of the war in Vienna, which the Russians got to first. All during the war, the animals in the Hietzinger Zoo — near the palace, on the outskirts of Vienna — those animals in the Hietzinger Zoo were somehow fed and protected from all the air raids, all the attacks. Nobody broke into that zoo and ate those animals, or killed those animals, took them home for dinner. Although the city was starving, somebody looked after the animals. When the cages were blasted or bombed, somebody rebuilt the cages, although the zoo itself was in virtual rubble by the end of the war.</p> <p>But when the Russians got to Vienna, the zoo was empty. The animals were gone. No one has ever written about this, it’s just a fact. The Russians went to Hietzing because there were some big animals out there, or so they imagined, but there were no animals out there.</p> <p>So the idea of the people in Vienna keeping those animals alive for the course of the war. Then, when they realized the Russians were going to take everything they could get when they got there… So, we’re not leaving them for the Russians. That was the background to the story. That and the Yugoslav theater of the war: General Mihajlovic and what happened to him.</p> <p>So I thought of writing a historical novel about how two young Austrian students are connected through ancestry to that story and get the idea — ill advised, as many young peoples’ ideas are— to free those animals, to let them go, to stage a zoo bust, because the period of the war has marked their lives. But at the same time, they were never a part of it. It’s somebody else’s generation, it was somebody else’s war. This novel was first published at the time of the Vietnam War. Nobody saw the parallels, the degree of protest that was in it, the spirit of a sort of demonstration with which it was written.</p> <p>It got good reviews here, but American reviewers weren’t as knowledgeable about Austria and World War II as I was. I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second. I had a child when I was still an undergraduate. I kind of did everything early.</p> <p><strong>You mentioned reviews. You can’t be a writer without reviews, without critics, without controversy. How do you handle that?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you’re going to be in this business, if you’re going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin. You don’t want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven’t done what I do. Most book reviewers haven’t written 11 novels. Many of them haven’t written one. So I try not to take very seriously what someone who can’t do what I do says about what I do. It’s different when you’re reviewed by a fellow novelist. The best reviews I’ve had have all been written by fellow novelists. Novelists who occasionally — but not regularly or professionally — write book reviews. That’s just the way it is. Margaret Drabble’s review of <em>The World According To Garp</em>, Robertson Davies’ review of <em>The Hotel New Hampshire</em>, Frank Howard Moser’s review of <em>The Cider House Rules</em>, Stephen King’s review of <em>A Prayer For Owen Meany</em>. His review of <em>Under The Circus</em>, William Boyd’s review of <em>My Movie Business</em>, Jay Parini’s review of <em>The Fourth Hand</em>, Carol Shields’s review of <em>A Widow For One Year</em>. These are all working novelists, and they’re all novelists that I respect, so that they should respect me. They do what I do. They’re qualified to evaluate what I do, because they do what I do. Most critics aren’t qualified. It’s as simple as that.</p> <p><strong>If a young man or woman came to you and said, “I want to do what you do,” what advice would you give them?</strong></p> <p>John Irving: The foremost advice I’d give them is that they better read everything they can. They better read, read, read, read, read. They better read as many good books as they can. They better put the literature of the world into storage somewhere, because they’re going to need it. The truth is, if you get to be a writer — especially if you get to be a self-supporting one, which means you get to write all day, nothing else gets in your way — if you get to do that, what happens is you’d rather be writing than reading. I’m not a good reader anymore because I write all the time. Literally, all the time. Well, I’m glad. I feel lucky that I was a good reader as a kid, because I don’t know when else I would have done it. I’m not embarrassed that I’m not much of a reader now, because I’m not slacking, you know. I write seven days a week, I can write eight hours a day. Not everybody can do that. I couldn’t do that 20 years ago, but I can do it now. Twenty years ago, when I wasn’t writing screenplays concurrently with whatever novel I’m writing, I was a better reader. I used to read a lot of things when I was between one novel and not yet started in the next. But now I’m never between things, because when I finish a draft of a novel, I go immediately to one or two or three uncompleted screenplays. I just go back and forth. There’s always something on my desk. There’s always something I can be writing, and I’d rather be writing than reading.</p> <p><strong>That’s great. Thank you.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">John Irving Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>18 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1028.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving speaks to Academy student delegates and members at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="Academy2005_1028" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1028-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1028-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1029.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving speaks to Academy student delegates and members at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="Academy2005_1029" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1029-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1029-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1030.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving speaks to Academy student delegates and members at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="Academy2005_1030" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1030-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1030-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving speaks to Academy student delegates and members at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="Academy2005_1031" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1031-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286.jpg" data-image-caption="Awards Council member Naomi Judd presents the Golden Plate Award to John Irving at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="Academy2005_1286" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Academy2005_1286-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.501976284585" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/BNuYHRY.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving" data-image-copyright="John Irving" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/BNuYHRY-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/BNuYHRY-506x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving during a visit to Barcelona, May 2016. (Ester Roig)" data-image-copyright="May 2016: John Irving during a visit to Barcelona. (Ester Roig)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_5874-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65394736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002.jpg" data-image-caption="American novelist John Irving has traveled many times to Europe, in particular London and Vienna, and has been a literature lecturer at many American universities. March 6, 1980. (Sophie Bassouls/CORBIS SYGMA)" data-image-copyright="American Novelist John Irving" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002-380x249.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-0000215204-002-760x497.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5139442231076" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-ZVG789138.jpg" data-image-caption="Author John Irving, 1994. (Marko Shark/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Author John Irving" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-ZVG789138-251x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Corbis-ZVG789138-502x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65131578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10.jpg" data-image-caption="Author John Irving with his youngest son, Everett, at home in Vernon, Vermont, June 2001. (Photo by Ellingag/All Over Press Norway/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="John Irving at Home in Vermont" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10-380x248.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-678147_10-760x495.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10.jpg" data-image-caption="Author John Irving at home, January 1989. (Photo by Kimberly Butler/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="John Irving" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10-380x248.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-50464023_10-760x496.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.87368421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10.jpg" data-image-caption="Author John Irving holds his Oscar for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Published, for "The Cider House Rules. at the 72nd Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, March 26, 2000. (Scott Nelson/AFP/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Author John Irving holds his Oscar for Best Screen" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10-380x332.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-51544971_10-760x664.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.326352530541" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10.jpg" data-image-caption="TIME cover with author John Irving, August 31, 1981. (Photo by Shyla Irving/Time Magazine/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="TIME cover 08-31-1981 author John Irving." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10-286x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Irving-Getty-53378380_10-573x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/John-Irving.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving in Barcelona, May 2016. (Iván Giménez)" data-image-copyright="May 2016: John Irving in Barcelona. (Iván Giménez)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/John-Irving-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/John-Irving-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4503816793893" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving, January 1990. (Marion Ettlinger/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="John Irving, January 1, 1990 (Marion Ettlinger/Corbis)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588-262x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OUT073588-524x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving_760_ac.jpg" data-image-caption="John Irving" data-image-copyright="irving_760_ac" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving_760_ac-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/irving_760_ac.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68157894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209.jpg" data-image-caption="Author John Irving with Dr. Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders and a Nobel Prize laureate." data-image-copyright="wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209-380x259.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_kouchner_irving_Academy2005_1209-760x518.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5322580645161" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1.jpg" data-image-caption="May 2, 1989: John Irving in the Netherlands (Rob Bogaerts)" data-image-copyright="May 2, 1989: John Irving in the Netherlands (Rob Bogaerts)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1-248x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JohnIrving1989-1-496x760.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li 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Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynn-nottage/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynn Nottage</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/cal-ripken-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Cal Ripken Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051825/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. 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