Daniel Quinn books

Anthologies

Collections

Graphic Novels

Ishmael Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Picture

Short Stories/Novellas

Standalone Novels

Daniel Quinn was born on October 11, 1935, in Omaha, Nebraska. He studied at St. Louis University, the University of Vienna, and Loyola University of Chicago, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English. Before becoming a novelist, he spent two decades in the publishing industry, holding editorial positions at the American Peoples Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, and several other firms. His first novel, Dreamer, appeared in 1988, but it was Ishmael in 1992 that changed his life and career.

Ishmael won the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award, a one-time prize created by Ted Turner that came with a $500,000 purse, the largest sum ever awarded to a single work of fiction at the time. The novel was selected from 2,500 entries by a jury that included Ray Bradbury, Nadine Gordimer, and Wallace Stegner. It went on to sell over a million copies in English and has been translated into roughly thirty languages. The book became a staple in college and high school courses across disciplines ranging from philosophy and ecology to anthropology and political science.

Quinn followed Ishmael with two companion novels, The Story of B (1996) and My Ishmael (1997), and continued writing fiction, non-fiction, and shorter works until late in his life. His other novels include After Dachau, a dystopian alternate history, and The Holy, a metaphysical thriller. He also wrote Providence, a spiritual autobiography structured as a conversation with a reader. Quinn died on February 17, 2018, in Houston, Texas.