Gene Wolfe was born in New York City and raised in Houston, Texas. He spent two and a half years at Texas A&M, then dropped out and was drafted. He was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge during the Korean War; afterward he attended the University of Houston on the GI Bill, earning a degree in mechanical engineering. His engineering career culminated in the editorship of the trade journal Plant Engineering, which he retained until his retirement in 1984.
He first came to prominence as a science fiction writer as the author of The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972); in 1973 The Death of Doctor Island won a Nebula for the best novella. His novel Peace won the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award in 1977; his poem “The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps” was awarded the Rhysling for science-fiction poetry.
His four-volume The Book of the New Son quickly established itself as a classic in the field. The first volume, The Shadow of the Torturer (1980), won the World Fantasy Award and the British SF Association Award; the second, The Claw of the Conciliator (1981), won the Nebula Award; the third, The Sword of the Lictor (1982), won the Locus Award; the fourth, The Citadel of the Autarch (1983), won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Prix Apollo. A coda to the sequence, The Urth of the New Sun, appeared in 1987.
Other novels include Operation Ares (1970); The Devil in a Forest (1976); Free Live Free (1984); Soldier in the Mist (1986) and Soldier of Arete (1989); There Are Doors (1988); Pandora by Holly Hollander (1990); and Castleview (1990). His most recent work is the four-volume The Book of the Long Sun, comprising Nightside the Long Sun (1993), Lake of the Long Sun (1994), Caldé of the Long Sun (1994), and the forthcoming Exodus from the Long Sun.
His 1988 short story collection Storeys from the Old Hotel won the World Fantasy Award; other collections include The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories (1980), Endangered Species (1989), and Castle of Days (which also includes essays).