George Cockroft
| Luke Rhinehart | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | George Cockcroft November 15, 1932 Albany, New York |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Humor |
| Notable works |
The Dice Man (1971) Adventures of Wim (1986) The Search for the Dice Man (1993) |
|
|
|
| Signature |  |
Luke Rhinehart (born George Cockcroft November 15, 1932) is the American writer of nine novels, most notably The Dice Man, a 1971 novel about a psychotherapist who casts dice in place of making decisions.
The Dice Man was critically and commercially well received. In 1995, the BBC called it "one of the fifty most influential books of the last half of the twentieth century," and in 1999 Loaded magazine named it "Novel of the Century". In 2013, the Telegraph listed it as one of the 50 great cult books of the last hundred years. Although first published in 1971, the book has enjoyed a 21st-century renaissance, being published or republished in more than 60 countries and translated into 26 languages.
His books The Search for the Dice Man, Whim and The Book of the Die continue the comic and philosophical ideas first explored in The Dice Man.
Rhinehart was born George Cockcroft in Albany, New York, son of an engineer and a civil servant. He received a BA from Cornell University in 1954 and an MA from Columbia University in 1956. In 1964 he received a PhD in American literature, also from Columbia. He married his wife, Ann (who would later become a writer of two romance novels and a volume of poetry) on June 30, 1956. Together they have three children. Rhinehart's brother James Cockcroft is the author of more than 20 books, mostly on Latin American history and society.
After obtaining his PhD, he went into teaching. During his years as a university professor he taught, among other things, courses in Zen and Western literature. He first floated the idea of living by the dice in a lecture: the reaction was equal parts intrigue and disgust, and it was at this point he realized it could become a novel. Rhinehart started experimenting with dice a long time before writing The Dice Man.
...
Wikipedia