Hawkes, John (Vol. 15) - Introduction

Hawkes, John 1925–

Hawkes is an American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Jonathan Baumbach calls Hawkes "something of a naturalist in reverse"; in his experimental fiction he delineates life as a surrealistic, often terrifying, dream world. Hawkes himself has said that his novels are attempts to renew the form of that genre. According to critic Albert Guerard, in whose writing class Hawkes wrote his first novel, The Cannibal, he is "perhaps the most original American novelist since Faulkner." (See also CLC, Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 14, and Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)