A short life of the author
Patrick James Rothfuss (b. 1973) was born on 6 June 1973 in Madison, Wisconsin. He spent nine years as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, changing majors repeatedly and working on the novel that would eventually become The Name of the Wind. He earned an MFA from Washington State University.
Life and Career
The Name of the Wind (2007) — the story of Kvothe, a legendary figure now living in hiding as an innkeeper, who tells his life story to a chronicler over three days — was an immediate critical and commercial success. The novel’s appeal lies in Rothfuss’s prose — musical, precise, and beautiful in a way that fantasy prose rarely achieves — and in its structure: a hero’s story told by the hero himself, with all the unreliability and self-mythologising that implies.
The Wise Man’s Fear (2011) continued Kvothe’s story — his time at the University, his encounter with the Fae, his training with the Adem warriors — and debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. The two novels have sold over 10 million copies.
The Slow Regard of Silent Things (2014) — a novella following the minor character Auri — was a formally experimental work that divided readers.
The third volume, The Doors of Stone, has not appeared. Rothfuss has spoken publicly about struggles with depression and the pressure of expectations. The long wait has become one of fantasy’s most discussed phenomena, drawing comparisons to George R.R. Martin’s similarly delayed The Winds of Winter.
Rothfuss founded the charity Worldbuilders, which has raised millions of dollars for Heifer International.
Major Works and Themes
Rothfuss writes about stories themselves — how they are told, how they distort, how the heroic narrative conceals ordinary pain. The Kingkiller Chronicle is structured as a story about storytelling: Kvothe’s narration of his own legend is a performance, and the gap between the young prodigy of the story and the broken innkeeper telling it is the trilogy’s central mystery.
The prose is the distinctive element. Rothfuss’s sentences have a rhythmic beauty unusual in fantasy — closer to Le Guin’s Earthsea than to the utilitarian prose of most epic fantasy.
Key Works
- The Name of the Wind (2007)
- The Wise Man’s Fear (2011)
Collecting Rothfuss
The Name of the Wind (2007, DAW Books) — the first edition — brings $100–$400 for fine copies.
The Wise Man’s Fear (2011, DAW Books) brings $30–$100. Rothfuss signs at conventions; signed copies are available.