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John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times - winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for the short story 'Interior Space'. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules - a film with seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most recent novel is Last Night in Twisted River.
Involving a plot to free all the animals from the Hietzing Zoo in Vienna, this was Irving's first novel, published in 1968. With an almost dream-like purposefulness, Graff and Siggy drop out of college, pour all their money into a motorbike and set off on a great unplanned journey. Much of the dialogue is hilarious, and often rude, and the story oozes a 1960s mirth and derision that has not forgotten World War II. (Kirkus UK)
