John Knowles author page

John Knowles biography

John Knowles (1926–2001) was an American novelist best known for his coming-of-age classic A Separate Peace.

Knowles was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, graduating in 1945. After an eight-month period in the U.S. Army Air Corps, he enrolled at Yale University, completing his B.A. in 1949.

Early in his career, Knowles worked as a reporter for the Hartford Courant and later took a post at Holiday magazine. He began writing short stories and travelled in Europe before publishing his major work.

In 1959, Knowles published his first novel, A Separate Peace, set at a fictional preparatory school during World War II. The book earned him the William Faulkner Foundation Award for a first novel and the Rosenthal Award. Its sequel, Peace Breaks Out, appeared in 1981 and returns to the school setting in a post-war context.

Other works by Knowles include Morning in Antibes (1962), Indian Summer (1966), A Vein of Riches (1978), The Private Life of Axie Reed (1986) and The Paragon (1971).

Knowles served as writer-in-residence at Princeton University and the University of North Carolina during his life. He died on 29 November 2001 near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.