| Denis Johnson | |
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| Born | 1949 Munich, Germany |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Writing period | 1969-present |
| Genres | Fiction |
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Denis Johnson (born 1949 in Munich, West Germany) is an American author who is best known for his short story collection Jesus' Son (1992) and his novel Tree of Smoke (2007), which won the National Book Award.
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Johnson holds an MFA degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop University of Iowa, where he has also returned to teach. He received a Whiting Writer’s Award in 1986 and a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction in 1993.
Johnson first came to prominence after the publication of his short story collection Jesus' Son (1992), which was adapted into the 1999 film of the same name, which was named one of the top ten films of the year by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Roger Ebert. Johnson has a cameo role in the film as a man who has been stabbed in the eye by his wife.
In 2006-2007, Johnson held the Mitte Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.
Johnson is twice divorced and lives with his third wife, Cindy Lee, in Arizona and Idaho.[3][4] Johnson has three children, two of whom he homeschooled; in October, 1997 he wrote an article for Salon.com in defense of homeschooling.[5]
In 1981, he won the National Poetry Series, for The Incognito Lounge: And Other Poems.
In 2002, Johnson won the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from The Paris Review for Train Dreams.
In 2007, Johnson published Tree of Smoke, his first full-length novel in nine years, which won a National Book Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.[6][7]
Johnson's plays have been produced in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Seattle. He is the Resident Playwright of Campo Santo, the resident theater company at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.
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