Lewis Shiner Biography

American writer, born in Oregon; he grew up in Arizona, New Mexico, Georgia, and the Sudan. He has written a variety of short stories, and a first novel entitled Frontera (1985). He has travelled widely throughout the USA and Mexico, and worked at a host of different jobs, ranging from rock musician to house decorator, clerk, and construction worker. He received much praise for his novel Deserted Cities of the Mind (1988), which recounts various factual events—the Mexico City earthquake, the border riots of 1986—within a narrative of surreal events and actions taking place in a fictitious Central American setting. In a plot with an apocalyptic tone and perspective, the novel details US government corruption in backing a guerrilla army with Iran-Contragate funds, and the wranglings of the drug culture. He has since published several further novels: The Edges of Things (1991), Slam (1991), When The Music's Over (1991), and Glimpses (1993).