James Hurst

James Hurst grew up on a coastal farm in North Carolina. He attended the Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, Georgia, before studying chemical engineering at North Carolina State College. He then served in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, he studied singing and acting at the Julliard School of Music in New York, and afterwards continued to study opera in Italy. After three years, he returned to New York to begin what would be a 34-year career as a banker. While working at Chase Manhattan Bank, he wrote short stories and a play in his spare time. Although several of his stories were published in smaller literary magazines, none received nearly as much recognition as The Scarlet Ibis, which won the Atlantic First award in 1960, the year it was published. It has since become a staple of short story anthologies. Hurst died in North Carolina at the age of 91.