Alfred Chester

 ( 1928 Births ) 

His first collection of short stories, Here Be Dragons, was published in 1955. His novel Jamie Is My Heart's Desire was initially published in a French translation, then in an English edition by the British publisher André Deutsch, and only later appeared in the United States. With Caetani's support, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1957. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 1957 Fellows Page His short story "As I Was Going Up the Stair" was included in Best American Short Stories. Biographical sketch, Alfred Chester Papers, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Starting in 1959, his short fiction was published in magazines such as The New Yorker, Esquire, and Transatlantic Review. His often virulent literary criticismFor example: "But the New Yorker and John Updike are both deeply immersed in the image of men as trivia. . . . Updike has no sense of invention, no imagination -- he seems incapable of making anything up to save his life -- no ability to create living people, conflict, or drama." Alfred Chester, "Twitches and Embarrassments," Commentary, 34 (July 1962), 77. appeared in the New York Review of Books, Partisan Review, and Commentary. He returned to the United States and met Susan Sontag through Harriet Sohmers and María Irene Fornés.

Chester moved to Morocco in 1963. His short story collection Behold Goliath was published in 1964, and his novel The Exquisite Corpse was published in 1967. He associated with Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles while in Morocco, but eventually fell out with both of them.