John Irving

John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978. Many of Irving's novels, including The Hotel New Hampshire (1981), The Cider House Rules (1985), A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), and A Widow for One Year (1998), have been bestsellers. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in the 72nd Academy Awards (1999) for his script of The Cider House Rules. Five of his novels have been adapted into films (Garp, Hotel, Meany, Cider, Widow). Several of Irving's books (Garp, Meany, Widow) and short stories have been set in and around Phillips Exeter Academy in the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. Irving was born John Wallace Blunt Jr. in Exeter, New Hampshire, the son of Helen Frances (née Winslow) and John Wallace Blunt Sr., a writer and executive recruiter; but the couple separated during pregnancy. Irving grew up in Exeter with a stepfather, Colin Franklin Newell Irving, who was a Phillips Exeter Academy faculty member. His uncle Hammy Bissell was also part of the faculty. John Irving was in the Phillips Exeter wrestling program as a student athlete and as an assistant coach, and wrestling features prominently in his books, stories, and life. While a student at Exeter, Irving was taught by author and Christian theologian Frederick Buechner, whom he quoted in an ...

The World According to Irving (2012)

John Irving's literary worlds are satirically exaggerated, socially critical, unexpectedly magical. But how do these dazzling, sometimes bizarre, narrative worlds emerge? A unique insight into his writing workshop and a search of the places and people who have ...  (more)

DIRECTION:  André Schäfer
CAST:  John Irving

John Irving's literary worlds are satirically exaggerated, socially critical, unexpectedly magical. But how do these dazzling, sometimes bizarre, narrative worlds emerge? A unique insight into his writing workshop and a search of the places and people who have ...  (more)

DIRECTION:  André Schäfer
CAST:  John Irving

The World According to Garp (1982)

EmotionalWhimsicalComplexDramatic

A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.  (more)

DIRECTION:  George Roy Hill
CAST:  Robin Williams  •  Mary Beth Hurt  •  Glenn Close  •  John Lithgow

A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.  (more)

DIRECTION:  George Roy Hill
CAST:  Robin Williams  •  Mary Beth Hurt  •  Glenn Close  •  John Lithgow

Le cri du rhinocéros (2018)

Marc Labrèche, the Director of this documentary, himself an author, actor and host, meets other creators to ask them these questions that inhabit him. Do artists have an expiry date? Do we create our best works in our youth or, on the contrary, does experience ...  (more)

DIRECTION:  Marc Labrèche
CAST:  Xavier Dolan  •  Atom Egoyan  •  Denys Arcand  •  Denis Villeneuve

Marc Labrèche, the Director of this documentary, himself an author, actor and host, meets other creators to ask them these questions that inhabit him. Do artists have an expiry date? Do we create our best works in our youth or, on the contrary, does experience ...  (more)

DIRECTION:  Marc Labrèche
CAST:  Xavier Dolan  •  Atom Egoyan  •  Denys Arcand  •  Denis Villeneuve