William Goede was born in Augusta, Wisconsin in 1932. He served in the Korean War, worked with naval intelligence, studied English in Edinburgh, taught in Rhode Island and Maine and received his Ph.D in American Black literature in California. He taught at UVic from 1966 until 1971. In 1982 he went to China, taught for four years, then worked for CIDA. He toured China as a saxaphonist in the country's only American-styled rock band, The Bejing Underground, and wrote a radio script called The Man From Vancouver. A thriller designed to teach English, it was published and has sold more than 300,000 copies in China. Goede later wrote Love in Beijing, a short story collection about the compicated relations between Chinese and foreigners. It was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Prize in 1989. A previous novel, Quantrill, follows the American maverick and convicted criminal Qauntrill who fled the U.S. to live on Quadra Island.

[BCBW 1992]