SOBIN, Gustaf 1935-2005

(Gustaf Peter Sobin)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born November 15, 1935, in Boston, MA; died of pancreatic cancer July 7, 2005, in Cavaillon, Vaucluse, France. Author. Sobin was an expatriate American poet living in France. A 1958 graduate of Brown University, he was profoundly influenced by the work of Ernest Hemingway, whom he also had the opportunity to meet while the author was living in Cuba. In an effort to experience the world as Hemingway had, Sobin moved to Paris in 1962 and came under the wing of French poet René Char. Settling in the town of Goult, in the Vaucluse region, he survived on a trust fund while working on his writing. Later in life, though, he found work teaching in Lacoste, France, as a professor for American university extension programs. From 1974 to 1980 he was a professor of creative writing for Sarah Lawrence College, and from 1981 to 1996 he did the same for the Cleveland Institute of Art. His last professorship in creative writing was for Bard College in Lacoste from 1997 to 1998. Sobin considered himself to be primarily a poet who enjoyed drawing on the local color of Provence to inspire his verses. Among his collections are The Earth as Air (1984), Breaths' Burials (1995), and Toward the Blanched Alphabets (1998). However, the poet also published a children's book, The Tale of the Yellow Triangle (1973), and several novels, his most popular being the 2000 novel The Fly-Truffler. Other novels include Venus Blue (1992) and In Pursuit of a Vanishing Star (2002).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2005, p. B11.

New York Times, July 12, 2005, p. A21.

Washington Post, July 14, 2005, p. B7.