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KEYNOTE ADDRESS: “My Sixteenth Novel: Queen Esther”
Dr. Larch, the obstetrician and abortionist in The Cider House Rules, is also a character in Queen Esther, my new novel. Larch is younger than you remember him, and there’s a different cast of characters among the unadopted orphans in Maine. This time, there’s a Jewish orphan — born in Vienna in 1905. Her father died on board the ship from Germany; her mother was murdered by anti-Semites in Portland.
About John Irving
John Irving has written sixteen novels over the course of his prolific career, the majority of which have been international bestsellers, and which have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. His beloved titles include The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award; Cider House Rules; A Widow for One Year; and A Prayer for Owen Meany, which is his bestselling novel in every language. Irving won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Cider House Rules. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968 when he was twenty-six years old.
Irving was also a competitive wrestler for twenty years. He coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Irving lives in Toronto and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada.
By John Irving: