Thornton Wilder

Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist.
Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin. He lived there in his early years. His father was a journalist and a diplomat who served in Hong Kong and Shanghai, China in 1906 and 1910. Wilder went to school there in those years.
He attended Oberlin College from 1915 to 1917. He got his B. A. from Yale University in 1920. In 1926 he got a master's degree in French literature from Princeton University. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1936. 
During World War II, he worked in military intelligence in North Africa and Italy.
Wilder won three Pulitzer Prizes for his writing. His second novel, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" won in 1928. His most famous play, "Our Town" won in 1938. Another play, "The Skin of Our Teeth" won in 1943. He was Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University in 1950 and 1951. He was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. In 1965 he was the first person to receive the National Medal for Literature.
He was friends with Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, and actor Montgomery Clift. He died in Hamden, Connecticut in 1975.