Toutonghi, Pauls 1976-

PERSONAL:

Born July 4, 1976, in Seattle, WA. Education: Cornell University, M.F.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Author. Has worked variously as burrito roller, pizza delivery driver, waiter in a retirement community, vintage baseball jersey vendor, project editor for Atlantic Coast Jet, telemarketer, sandwich maker, college professor, shipping clerk for a medical supply store, and a research assistant for the Complete Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Pushcart Prize, 2000, for story "Regeneration."

WRITINGS:

Live Cargo (short stories), Livingston Press (Livingston, AL), 2003.

Red Weather (novel), Shaye Areheart Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor of fiction to periodicals, including the Boston Review, Zoetrope: All-Story, One Story, Glimmer Train, Book, and Terminus, and other writing to Sports Illustrated, Crab Creek Review, and the Yemen Observer.

SIDELIGHTS:

Pauls Toutonghi worked at a number of jobs over the years, but they were all simply means of earning an income while he pursued his main love: writing. Toutonghi's short fiction has appeared in various publications, and his story "Regeneration" won the 2000 Pushcart Prize when Toutonghi was merely twenty-three years old. A collection of his short stories, Live Cargo, includes works about a range of locations and time periods dating back as far as World War I and covering everything from Seattle to New York, Cairo to Russia, taking their cue from Toutonghi's own colorful Latvian/Egyptian ethnic heritage. His debut novel, Red Weather, examines the immigrant experience, focusing on a fifteen-year-old Soviet Latvian boy who lives in Milwaukee with his parents. The tale shows the family's new life against a backdrop of late-1980s Soviet history. Writing for Booklist, Keir Graff felt that the ending dragged, but otherwise called the book "a first novel of uncommon poise and power." A contributor for Publishers Weekly, however, asserted that the book's "character details, evocation of working-class Milwaukee and tales of the old country effectively walk the line between realism and absurdity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2006, Keir Graff, review of Red Weather, p. 68.

Library Journal, May 15, 2006, Laurie Cavabanugh, review of Red Weather, p. 92.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2006, review of Red Weather, p. 159.

Publishers Weekly, January 9, 2006, review of Red Weather, p. 29.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, summer, 2004, Robert Buckeye, review of Live Cargo, p. 140.

ONLINE

Pauls Toutonghi Home Page,http://www.paulstoutonghi.com (October 9, 2006).