Career
His most well known novel, Imagining Argentina, employs the methods of magic realism to tell a story of the Dirty War (1976-1983). This novel, along with Naming the Spirits and Tales from the Blue Archives, makes up the Argentina Trilogy. His work, published in eighteen languages, is frequently taught in schools and universities.
In 1994 a film was made of Imagining Argentina by Christopher Hampton starring Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson and Claire Bloom.
In 1996, Zorongo Flamenco, a Minneapolis-based flamenco troupe, staged a flamenco version of the novel that featured an international cast of dancers and singers. In addition to writing six novels, he is the author of a non-fiction study of modern fiction, Unbodied Hope, as well as scholarly articles in PMLA, Comparative Literature, American Literature, Modern Fiction Studies and other learned journals.
During the 1990s he was a regular reviewer for The New York Times Book Review. After graduating from high school, Thornton attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1960.
He returned for an Master of Arts in 1967 and began working with Hugh Kenner who directed his Doctor of Philosophy dissertation (1973).
He taught at Montana State University from 1974 to 1984 when he left for a position at University of California, Los Los Angeles After Imagining Argentina was published in 1987, he abandoned scholarship and concentrated solely on fiction. Since then, he has taught creative writing at University of California Santa Barbara, University of California Irvine, and Pomona College before retiring in 2009.
