Born in Chicago, IL in 1946, Barry Gifford first began writing at the age of eleven. Although his
interests also include baseball and music, he has always known that he wanted to become a
writer. Nonetheless, Gifford attended the University of Missouri to play baseball for a short
period of time before he decided to attend King’s College in Cambridge in 1966. At this point,
he came to the conclusion that school was simply not one of his priorities in life, so he left
King’s College as well. Even to this day, he feels uncomfortable entering any school atmosphere
because he was never fond of school as a child. It wasn’t until his mid-30s that Gifford finally
decided that writing was his true calling, and he would begin pursuing this talent.
Throughout his life, he has lived in various places including New York, New Orleans, Miami,
Havana, Cuba, and Rome, Italy. In addition, he has traveled to several other foreign countries
such as Japan, France, Spain, and Italy. During his trips to foreign countries, he has made it a
priority to bring a copy of his book in the spoken language of that particular country. He does
this in order to develop a deeper relationship with people enjoy his novels all around the world.
Currently, he has published books in twenty-eight different languages. Gifford has spent a large
portion of his time traveling in Europe, but today, he has settled down in San Francisco for the
time being.
Although he is resistant to attending or even visiting schools, Gifford taught film studies at the
University of California at Berkley for one semester after one of the faculty members begged
him to become a professor. This experience in an educational environment was short-lived
because he then decided to retire, but he says to have loved it nonetheless.
From songs to screenplays to novels, Barry Gifford has written it all. A few of his books are
now also feature films such as Wild at Heart (1990). He began his writing career with songs and
poetry, and then, he got into novels, essays, and non-fiction works in the years following.
During the last leg of his career, he wrote screenplays for an HBO series called Hotel Room, but
the show itself was not successful. As a result of his success as a writer, Gifford starred in a
documentary about his book Bordertown. In addition, his work has appeared in many magazines
and other publications including The New York Times and Rolling Stone. He has received
several awards and recognitions such as The New York Times Notable Book of the Year for The
Phantom Father and Los Angeles Times Novel of the Year Wyoming.
Recently, in 2010, he published a couple of new works including Sailor and Lula: The Complete
Novels and Sad Stories of the Death of Kings.