James Lee Burke

Stuart Sim (University of Sunderland); Revised By: Laurence Mazzeno (Alvernia College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 5 Dec 1936
Activity 1965-ongoing

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Genres and Modes

Crime and Detective
Non-Fiction
- Essay / Lecture (literary)
Story Collection

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

James Lee Burke was born in Houston, Texas, and grew up in the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast area. His father, an engineer, was from Iberia Parish (county), Louisiana, where the Burkes have been a prominent family in the area since the 1830s. His mother’s family was from southeast Texas; her ancestors played a role in the colourful history of the region. Burke’s father died when Burke was eighteen. Shortly thereafter he enrolled at Southwest Louisiana Institute in Lafayette, Louisiana, and later transferred to the University of Missouri, where he earned his undergraduate degree and a Master of Fine Arts. While at the university he met and married his wife, Pearl Pai Chu, a refugee from Communist China. The couple has four …

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3925 words

Citation: Sim, Stuart, Laurence Mazzeno. "James Lee Burke". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 February 2009; last revised 06 February 2019. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12511, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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