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A List of Works by Nebraska Author Wright Morris Wright Morris was born in 1910 in Central City, Nebraska, a town he often fictionalized as Lone Tree. Only days after his birth, Morris' mother died, leaving him in the care of his father and their neighbors. Morris lived in Omaha from 1919 to 1924, spending two summers at his Uncle Harry's ranch, the setting for his 1948 work The Home Place, which blended fiction and photography. Leaving his studies at Pomona College in California, Morris traveled to Europe in 1933 to accumulate experiences he would related in Solo (1983). In 1940, Morris published his first work -- a photo text called The Inhabitants, which probes the relationship between people and their place. Morris' first novel, My Uncle Dudley, was published in 1942 and in 1946 the New School for Social Research in New York curated the first major show of Morris' photographs. While living in Pennsylvania during the 1940s, Morris forged a relationship with fellow Nebraskans Loren and Mabel Eiseley. Loren, soon to become an important essayist on natural science, influence Morris to pursue scientific metaphor in his fiction, as in Love Among the Cannibals (1957) and What a Way to Go 1962. An award winning writer, Morris won the National Book Award two times: in 1956 for Field of Vision, and in 1981 for Plains Song for Female Voices. Morris constantly questions whether the people or the environment contributes more to what influences life in a place. As he wrote in Ceremony in Lone Tree (1960), The people change -- according to a survey conducted by the supermarket -- but the lufe in Polk remains much the same." However, in A Life 1973), Morris seems to suggest that place is contained within the people: "The old man was born in this country and it might be misleading to say that he had ever left it." From 1962 to 1975, Morris was a Professor of Creative Writing at California State in San Francisco. Because he spent most of his writing and photographic career documenting plains life, Morris created much of the imagery through which others view the Midwest. The "half-orphan" from Central City authored over 40 books, wrote countless essays, articles and book reviews and was one of the world's most respected photographers. Wright Morris died on April 25, 1998 at age 88. Fiction1942 - My Uncle Dudley Photography and Photo-texts1940 - The Inhabitants [917.3 qMor] Memoir1981 - Will's Boy: A Memoir [B M8323] Collections of Essays: Social and Literary Criticism1956 - The Territory Ahead [810.9 M83t]adapted for the Web March 2006 sdc / last updated March 2008 sdc Looking for additional novels on this or other subjects? Try out the NoveList database! | ||||