Robert Hellenga Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Robert Hellenga Biography

Hellenga grew up in Three Oaks, Michigan, a typical Midwestern small town, but spent summers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where his father, a commission merchant with a seasonal business, handled produce that was shipped there from what was then the world's largest farmers market, in Benton Harbor, Michigan. The men who worked for his father were almost all Italians, and in retrospect he saw that this is how he got my first sense of Italy as something opposed to small-town Midwestern Protestant culture - a theme that has shaped a lot of his writing, including Philosophy Made Simple.

He has taught English literature at Knox College, in Galesburg, IL, since 1968. During his tenure at Knox he directed two programs for the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, one at the Newberry Library in Chicago and one in Florence, Italy, and spent a year at the University of Chicago on a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. They spent quite a bit of time in Florence and Bologna, and in 2009 we spent six weeks in Verona, where I was a visiting writer at the university.

He started writing fiction at Knox, which has a strong creative writing program, published his first story in 1973 and his first novel (after 39 rejections) in 1994. Snakewoman of Little Egypt was his sixth novel. The first five are: The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, and The Italian Lover.

He have three daughters. Rachel is the Director of Museum Exhibits and Eduction at the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, IL; Heather teaches fifth grade in Galesburg, IL; and Caitrine is a veterinarian in Glen Carbon, IL. His wife has recently retired from teaching Latin at Monmouth College.

Robert Hellenga's website

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