Background
Fountain grew up in Elizabeth City, a tobacco town in eastern North Carolina.
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- Photos
- Works
book
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (Paperback) - Common
(From the slums of Haiti to a golf course in Myanmar, and ...)
From the slums of Haiti to a golf course in Myanmar, and from the Colombian jungle to the diamond mines of Sierra Leone, this title stories describe a world in political and social upheaval, and the lives caught in the balance.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FDVJDH2/?tag=2022091-20
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories
( The well-meaning protagonists of Brief Encounters with ...)
The well-meaning protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara are caught—to both disastrous and hilarious effect—in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them. Ben Fountain’s prize-winning debut speaks to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060885602/?tag=2022091-20
Ben Fountain
Edit ProfileEducation
Duke University; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Career
His family moved to Cary, near Raleigh, when he was 13. Fountain earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980, and a law degree from the Duke University School of Law in 1983. After a brief stint practicing real estate law at Akin Gump in Dallas, Fountain quit law in 1988 to become a full-time fiction writer
While collecting articles about things he was interested in, Fountain was riveted by Haiti, regarding it "like a laboratory, almost.
Everything that’s gone on in the last five hundred years—colonialism, race, power, politics, ecological disasters—it’s all there in very concentrated form. And also I just felt, viscerally, pretty comfortable there." Speaking little French, let alone Haitian Creole, he went for his first trip abroad there in 1991 and at least thirty more times.
From this came four of the best regarded stories in his 2006 breakthrough collection of short stories: Brief Encounters With Che Guevara. A late bloomer, he was forty-eight.
Fountain"s latest novel,, was released in early May 2012.
The Oscar-winning screenwriter of Slumdog Millionaire, Simon Beaufoy, is adapting the novel into a screenplay, a new Film4 project in collaboration with The Ink Factory, a United States. production company. Ang Lee is attached to direct lieutenant Filming began in 2015 and the film is scheduled to be released in November 2016.
Achievements
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2002 Texas Institute of Letters Short Story Award 2003 Texas Institute of Letters Short Story Award 2005 Texas Institute of Letters Short Story Award 2004 Pushcart Prize 2005 O. Henry Award 2006 Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction 2007 O. Henry Award 2007 Hemingway Foundation/Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association Award for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara 2007 Whiting Award 2012 National Book Award (fiction), finalist, Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk 2012 Specsavers National Book Awards International Author of the Year shortlist for Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk 2012 Goodreads Readers Choice Awards 2012, Best Fiction finalist for Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk 2012 Flaherty-Dunnan Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award (fiction), Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (fiction), Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk 2013 Dayton Literary Peace Prize (fiction), runner-up, Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk 2013 Chautauqua Prize, shortlist, Billy Lynn"s Long Halftime Walk.
Works
book
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Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (Paperback) - Common
(From the slums of Haiti to a golf course in Myanmar, and ...)
-
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories
( The well-meaning protagonists of Brief Encounters with ...)
-
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (Paperback) - Common
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Born
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Nationality
United States
Awards
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National Book Critics Circle Award; Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award Pushcart Prize; National Book Awards International Author; Dayton Literary Peace Prize; O. Henry award; Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award; Whiting award; Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; Short Story Award; Los Angeles Times Book Prize; National Book Award; National Book Critics Circle Award The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize is an annual award presented by The Center for Fiction, a non-profit organization in New York City, to the best debut novel.; Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes.; The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best 'poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot' published in the small presses over the previous year.; The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award is awarded annually to a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction.National Book Critics Circle Award; Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award Pushcart Prize; National Book Awards International Author; Dayton Literary Peace Prize; O. Henry award; Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award; Whiting award; Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; Short Story Award; Los Angeles Times Book Prize; National Book Award; National Book Critics Circle Award The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize is an annual award presented by The Center for Fiction, a non-profit organization in New York City, to the best debut novel.; Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes.; The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best 'poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot' published in the small presses over the previous year.; The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award is awarded annually to a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction.