James Salter and Robert Phelps

WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:

Memorable Days, a feature, in Fall 2010

James Salter is one of the most gifted writers in American fiction. He was a fighter pilot in the Korean War, and his first novel, The Hunters, is based on this experience. His four other novels include A Sport and a Pastime and Light Years. The author of the memoir Burning the Days, as well as screenplays, essays, and short stories, Salter received the PEN/Faulkner Award for his collection Dusk and Other Stories. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000, Salter recently published Life Is Meals with his wife, Kay Eldredge.

Robert Phelps (1922–1989) was born in Elyria, Ohio, and studied at Oberlin College and the University of Chicago. He is best known for having introduced the work of Colette to Americans as the editor of Earthly Paradise: An Autobiography, Drawn from Her Lifetime Writings (1966). He also edited the works of Cocteau, and in 1970 he published Professional Secrets: An Autobiography of Jean Cocteau. Phelps’s novel, Heroes and Orators, was praised by Donald Barr for its “meticulous observation and fine literary craftsmanship.”