Walter Tevis

Walter Tevis (San Francisco, 1928 - New York, 1984) was an American novelist and short story writer. Working in English, he moved between realistic fiction and science fiction, and he is best remembered today for the film and television adaptations of his books.

He grew up in San Francisco and spent part of his childhood in Kentucky, where his family had been granted land. After a year in a convalescent home for a heart condition, he travelled alone by train at eleven to rejoin his parents and siblings. He served in the Navy near the end of the Second World War and then studied English literature at the University of Kentucky, where he worked with A. B. Guthrie Jr. Before writing full time, he taught high school in several small Kentucky towns and later worked in universities.

He published more than two dozen short stories in magazines such as Esquire, Playboy and The Saturday Evening Post. His first novel, The Hustler (1959), portrays the world of pool halls and gambling, themes he returned to in The Color of Money (1984). With The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963) he turned toward science fiction, and later wrote Mockingbird (1980), set in a decaying New York where robots rule over a population that can no longer read. Many of his characters struggle with vices such as drinking, and Tevis himself fought alcohol addiction for much of his life.

His legacy lives on largely through screen adaptations: the films of The Hustler and The Color of Money, Nicolas Roeg's film of The Man Who Fell to Earth, and the 2020 Netflix series The Queen's Gambit, based on his 1983 novel. His books have been translated into many languages. He died of lung cancer in New York in 1984.