Larry Jeff McMurtry (born June 3, 1936) is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller, and Academy Award winning screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the "old west" or in contemporary Texas. He is known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 novel Lonesome Dove, a historical saga that follows ex-Texas Rangers as they drive their cattle from the Rio Grande to a new home in the frontier of Montana, and for co-writing the adapted scre...
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Larry Jeff McMurtry (born June 3, 1936) is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller, and Academy Award winning screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the "old west" or in contemporary Texas. He is known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 novel Lonesome Dove, a historical saga that follows ex-Texas Rangers as they drive their cattle from the Rio Grande to a new home in the frontier of Montana, and for co-writing the adapted screenplay for Brokeback Mountain. Lonesome Dove was adapted into a hit television miniseries.
McMurtry was born in Archer City, Texas, the son of Hazel Ruth (née McIver) and William Jefferson McMurtry, who was a rancher. He grew up on a ranch outside Archer City, Texas, which is the model for the town of Thalia that appears in much of his fiction. He earned degrees from North Texas State University (B.A. 1958) and Rice University (M.A. 1960).
McMurtry has won the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters on three occasions; in 1962...
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