Kent Haruf was born in eastern Colorado. He received his Bachelors of Arts in literature from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965 and his Masters of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973. For two years, he taught English in Turkey with the Peace Corps and his other jobs have included a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Colorado, a hospital in Arizona, a library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, and universities in Nebraska and Illinois.
Haruf is the author of Plainsong, which received the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction, and The New Yorker Book Award. Plainsong was also a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award. His novel, The Tie That Binds, received a Whiting Foundation Award and a special citation from the Pen/Hemingway Foundation. In 2006, Haruf was awarded the Dos Passos Prize for Literature.
All of his novels are set in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado. Holt is loosely based on Yuma, Colorado, an early residence of Haruf in the 1980s.
Haruf lived with his wife, Cathy, in Salida, Colorado, with their three daughters. He died of cancer on November 30, 2014.
«تو از مرگ نمیترسی؟» «نه اونطور که قبلاً میترسیدم. مدّتیه که به نوعی زندگیِ اُخروی ایمان پیدا کردهام. بازگشت به خودِ حقیقیمون، به خودِ معنویمون. ما اونقدر در این بدنِ جسمانی باقی میمونیم تا سرانجام به خاستگاهِ معنویمون برگردیم.» اَدی گفت: «نمیدونم به اینها باور دارم یا نه. شاید حق با تو باشه. امیدوارم همینطور باشه که میگی.» «بالأخره روزی خواهیم دید، اینطور نیست؟ امّا هنوز زوده.» اَدی گفت: «آره، فعلاً زوده. من این جهانِ مادی رو خیلی دوست دارم. این زندگیِ دنیوی رو با تو دوست دارم. این هوا، این شهرک، حیاط پشتی، سنگریزههای کوچه پشتی، چمن، شبهای خنک، دراز کشیدن روی تخت و حرف زدن با تو در تاریکی.»
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کنت هاروف