Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson was a novelist, short story writer, poet and playwright. Born in Munich, Germany, he grew up in Tokyo, Manila and the suburbs of Washington, D.C., earned an MFA at the University of Iowa, and later lived in Arizona and Idaho.

He began as a poet, with collections such as The Man Among the Seals (1969), Inner Weather (1976) and The Incognito Lounge (1982). His first novel, Angels (1983), was followed by fiction including the linked story collection Jesus' Son (1992), the crime novel Nobody Move (2009) and the novella Train Dreams (2011). Tree of Smoke (2007), a long novel about the Vietnam War and a secret CIA operation, won the 2007 National Book Award for Fiction. He also wrote plays and a collection of reportage, Seek: Reports from the Edges of America and Beyond (2001).

His fiction often centers on people living at the margins of American life and their search for grace.