Who is Thorton Wilder



Thornton Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He is the only writer to ever win Pulitzer Prize for Novel and Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Born in Madison, Wisconsin Wilder lived in China as a teenager where his father was a United States Consul-General in Hong Kong.

Although quoted with once saying, "I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island," Thorton Wilder taught poetry at Harvard, French at Lawrenceville School, playwriting at the University of Chicago, and was a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii.

Wilder wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt but is most noted for his 1938 work Our Town

Wilder's impressive 3 Pulitzer awards include:

  1. 1927 for The Bridge of San Luis Rey
  2. 1938 for Our Town
  3. 1942 for The Skin of Our Teeth