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Raymond Carver

Born

in Clatskanie, Oregon, The United States

May 25, 1938

Died

August 02, 1988

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Poetry

Influences

Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, Antonio Machado, James Salter, Isaac ...more

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Carver was born into a poverty-stricken family at the tail-end of the Depression. He married at 19, started a series of menial jobs and his own career of 'full-time drinking as a serious pursuit', a career that would eventually kill him. Constantly struggling to support his wife and family, Carver enrolled in a writing programme under author John Gardner in 1958. He saw this opportunity as a turning point.

Rejecting the more experimental fiction of the 60s and 70s, he pioneered a precisionist realism reinventing the American short story during the eighties, heading the line of so-called 'dirty realists' or 'K-mart realists'. Set in trailer parks and shopping malls, they are stories of banal lives that turn on a seemingly insignificant detai ...more

Combine Editions
Raymond Carver’s books

Average rating: 4.11 · 222,747 ratings · 19,205 reviews · 365 distinct works • Similar authors

	What We Talk About When We Talk About Love 3.99 avg rating — 81,477 ratings — published 1981 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cathedral 4.24 avg rating — 41,687 ratings — published 1983 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories 4.41 avg rating — 22,644 ratings — published 1988 — 83 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? 4.19 avg rating — 20,090 ratings — published 1976 — 86 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver, Robert Altman (Introduction) 4.10 avg rating — 7,232 ratings — published 1993 — 46 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Elephant and Other Stories 4.09 avg rating — 4,456 ratings — published 1988	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories 4.13 avg rating — 3,343 ratings — published 1983 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose 4.04 avg rating — 3,336 ratings — published 2000	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Beginners 4.24 avg rating — 2,967 ratings — published 2009 — 59 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	All of Us: The Collected Poems 4.32 avg rating — 2,864 ratings — published 1996 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Raymond Carver…

Quotes by Raymond Carver (?)

“Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.”
― Raymond Carver

5364 likes

“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”
― Raymond Carver

tags: heart, human-passion

1528 likes

“And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”
― Raymond Carver

1150 likes

See all Raymond Carver's quotes »

Polls

March 2026 Short Story/Novella Poll

The Lifted Veil by George Eliot

30 votes, 21.7%

R is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury

29 votes, 21.0%

The Leader of the People by John Steinbeck

18 votes, 13.0%

The Doom of the Griffiths by Elizabeth Gaskell

12 votes, 8.7%

The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffmann

11 votes, 8.0%

The Love Poems of John Donne

11 votes, 8.0%

The Open Window by Saki

9 votes, 6.5%

The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

7 votes, 5.1%

A Small, Good Thing by Raymond Carver

6 votes, 4.3%

The School Days of an Indian Girl by Zitkála-Šá

5 votes, 3.6%

138 total votes

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The Critical Beat...: Top Ten Books Read in 2008?	5	874	Feb 19, 2009 12:14AM
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