Robert Coover
Rip Awake
Playwright
Robert Coover is an American writer of avant-garde fiction, plays, poetry and essays whose experimental forms and techniques mix reality and illusion, frequently creating otherworldly and surreal situations and effects. He is the author of twenty-some books of fiction and plays, his most recent being Noir and A Child Again. Robert Coover’s first novel, The Origin of the Brunists, won the 1966 William Faulkner Award. His other works include the collection of short fiction, Pricksongs and Descants, a collection of plays, A Theological Position, such novels as The Public Burning, Spanking the Maid, Gerald’s Party, Pinocchio in Venice, John’s Wife, Ghost Town and Briar Rose. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and awarded numerous prizes and fellowships, the Rea Lifetime Achievement Award for the Short Story, and a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship. His plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London and elsewhere. At Brown University he taught “Cave Writing,” (a writing workshop in immersive virtual reality), and other experimental electronic writing and mixed media workshops.