WRIGHT, Thomas E. 1927-

PERSONAL: Born October 16, 1927, in Monroe, LA; son of Edwin Gordon (a broker) and Emily (a homemaker; maiden name, Trousdale) Wright. Ethnicity: "Anglo-Saxon." Education: University of the South, B.A.; Columbia University, M.A. Politics: "Anti-war, anti-guns, and anti-Bush." Religion: "Agnostic, sympathetic toward Vedanta." Hobbies and other interests: Wide reading, enjoying friends, keeping fit.

ADDRESSES: Home—P.O. Box 50, Zona 1, Guatemala. Agent—Ed Knappman, New England Publishing Association, P.O. Box 5, Chester, CT 06412.

CAREER: Writer. New York University, New York, NY, lecturer in modern English literature, 1950–51; Cameo Theater (television series), junior editor, c. 1956. Military service: U.S. Army, 1942.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fellow, Huntington Hartford Foundation.

WRITINGS:

Into the Maya World, R. Hale (London, England), 1969.

Into the Moorish World, R. Hale (London, England), 1972.

Growing up with Legends (memoir), Praeger (Westport, CT), 1998.

Contributor of short stories to periodicals, including Johns Hopkins and London.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Tales of Expatriation, a collection of short stories.

SIDELIGHTS: Thomas E. Wright once told CA: "My reasons for writing are complex, but definitely do not include money. How many serious writers earn significant royalties from their writing? My advice for young writers is to have a rich, indulgent family or an inheritance.

"My writing is divided into autobiographical work and fiction. Each is a different discipline. Part of the autobiographical process is diplomacy. Isherwood once told me, 'Tom, say anything you want about a person's character and he'll accept it—but don't, don't wound his vanity.' In autobiography, complete naked honesty is utterly necessary; the reader is very sensitive to this. Isherwood taught me about honesty. An autobiography ruined by deviousness is Paul Bowles's Without Stopping. Also, sexual bravado—that virtually destroyed Harold Norse's autobiography—must be avoided. In autobiography the author should carefully select the most interesting parts of his life and leave out the rest, for an autobiography must be, as well as honest, interesting.

"Fiction is different. It consists, almost by definition, of arriving at significant truths by artful lying. My latest fiction is in the vein of Latin American magical realism. Isabel Allende is the master of that, in her magnificent The House of the Spirits. Having lived in Latin America for thirty-five years, I've absorbed magical realism from the very air. I may be the only North American to employ it successfully.

"In my writing I hope to achieve—humbly—having added a drop or two to the great reservoir of culture, of art. Okay, just one drop!"