Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Rules for Old Men Waiting

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Rules for Old Men Waiting

Peter Pouncey was born in Tsingtao, China of English parents. At the end of World War II, after several dislocations and separations, the family reassembled in England, where he completed his classical education at boarding school and at Oxford University. In 1964 he was offered a job for one year as a classicist, filling in for a professor on sabbatical leave at Fordham University, and has been in America ever since - first at Fordham and then at Columbia University from 1967-1984 (he was dean of the college during much of the 70s) specializing in classical historiography; after which he spent a decade as President of Amherst College.

He now lives with his wife in New York City and northern Connecticut, and divides his time between writing and teaching. Rules For Old Men Waiting, his first novel, took 20 years to write. Hopefully it won't be his last.

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This article relates to Rules for Old Men Waiting. It first ran in the August 17, 2006 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.