Carver, Raymond (1938-1988), was an American author known for his short stories. Carver’s stories portray alienated and economically struggling working class characters who battle to keep their families together and their meager dreams alive.
Carver became the leading author of “minimalist fiction,” a style of extreme realism prominent in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The style features a flat tone, an obsession with drabness, and inarticulate characters. Carver’s technique has been praised for its readability and its sensitivity to the problems of ordinary people.
Carver’s reputation for stylistic restraint and bleak outlook is largely based on his story collections Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976), Furious Seasons (1977), and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981). He showed more optimism and a less severe technique in the later collection Cathedral (1983). His Collected Stories was published by the Library of America in 2009, after his death. Carver’s poetry was collected in All of Us (1998).
Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, on May 25, 1938. He worked low-paying jobs, experienced financial and family difficulties, and suffered from alcoholism. These painful experiences dominate his fiction. He died of lung cancer on Aug. 2, 1988.
