30 Facts About John Irving

Many of John Irving's novels, including The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A Widow for One Year, have been bestsellers.

John Irving won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 72nd Academy Awards for his script of the film adaptation of The Cider House Rules.

John Irving was raised by his mother and stepfather, Colin Franklin Newell John Irving, who was a Phillips Exeter Academy faculty member.

John Irving was in the Phillips Exeter wrestling program as a student athlete and as an assistant coach, and wrestling features prominently in his books, stories, and life.

John Irving never met his biological father, who was a pilot in the Army Air Forces during World War II.

John Irving did not find out about his father's heroism until 1981, when he was almost 40 years old.

John Irving's career began at the age of 26 with the publication of his first novel, Setting Free the Bears.

In 1975, John Irving accepted a position as assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke College.

Frustrated at the lack of promotion his novels were receiving from his first publisher, Random House, John Irving offered his fourth novel, The World According to Garp, to Dutton, which promised him stronger commitment to marketing.

John Irving makes a brief cameo appearance in the film as the referee in one of Garp's high school wrestling matches.

John Irving's next novel was A Prayer for Owen Meany, another New England family epic about religion set in a New England boarding school and in Toronto, Ontario.

John Irving returned to Random House for his next book, A Son of the Circus.

John Irving returned in 1998 with A Widow for One Year, which was named a New York Times Notable Book.

John Irving wrote My Movie Business, a memoir about his involvement in creating the film version of The Cider House Rules.

John Irving has had four novels reach number one on the bestseller list of The New York Times: The Hotel New Hampshire, which stayed number one for seven weeks, and was in the top 15 for over 27 weeks; The Cider House Rules ; A Widow for One Year ; and The Fourth Hand.

John Irving served as an assistant coach on his sons' high school wrestling teams until he was 47 years old.

John Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as an Outstanding American in 1992.

In 2000, John Irving revealed that he and Tod "Kip" Williams were co-writing a screenplay for an adaptation of the novel A Widow for One Year.

In 2005, John Irving received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

John Irving won a Lambda Literary Award in 2013 in the Bisexual Fiction category for In One Person, and was awarded the organization's Bridge Builder Award to honor him as an ally of the LGBT community.

On June 10,2013, John Irving announced his next novel, his 14th, titled Avenue of Mysteries, named after a street in Mexico City.

On November 3,2015, John Irving revealed that he'd been approached by HBO and Warner Brothers to reconstruct The World According to Garp as a miniseries.

John Irving described the project as being in the early stages.

On June 28,2017, John Irving revealed in a long letter to fans on Facebook that his new novel was primarily a ghost story.

In 1964, John Irving married Shyla Leary, whom he had met at Harvard in 1963 while taking a summer course in German, before traveling to Vienna with IES Abroad.

John Irving has homes in Toronto and Pointe au Baril, Ontario.

John Irving has said he plans to keep his US citizenship, reserving the right to be outspoken about the United States and his dislike of Donald Trump.

John Irving was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007 and subsequently had a radical prostatectomy.

John Irving is a second cousin of academic Amy Bishop, who was convicted of perpetrating the 2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting.

In 2018, John Irving was an honorary degree recipient at Williams College.