Official Bio: Pauls Toutonghi was born in 1976 to an Arab father and a Latvian mother. He speaks Latvian, French, and a little Arabic — the three languages that form the backdrop of his earliest memories.
His writing has been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Granta, The Yemen Observer, The New York Times, Zoetrope: All-Story, Outside Magazine, One Story, Sports Illustrated, and numerous other periodicals. He received a Pushcart Prize for his short story, Regeneration, which appeared in The Boston Review.
His four books — two novels and a work of nonfiction from Random House, and a novel from Simon & Schuster — have been translated into Portuguese, Italian, German, and Latvian.
Kirkus, in a starred-review, said that Pauls’ second novel, Evel Knievel Days, was “…brilliantly imagined. Artfully written. Superbly entertaining.” And the New York Times agreed, saying it was, “told with an addictive voice and bulging with fully-realized characters.”
After receiving his PhD in Postcolonial English Literature from Cornell University, Toutonghi moved from Brooklyn, New York to Portland, Oregon — where he now teaches at Lewis & Clark College.
He is the father of twins. His literary work is represented by Bill Clegg of The Clegg Agency.
Pauls Harijs Toutonghi 