Robert Anthony Inman (June 13, 1931 – November 20, 2006) was an American educator, journalist and author. Inman was the son of Verne Inman, M.D., former chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at UCSF. He was born in

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and attended Grattan School and Lowell High, achieving the highest honors. As he grew up, he worked summers as manager of the Headen Park Farm, a

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farm founded by his great-great grandfather, Benjamin F. Headen in 1852. The farm house is now the Inman-Headen Museum. Inman graduated from

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

with distinction (

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) in 1952, and was awarded back-to-back Fulbright Scholarships in German Literature in

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. During this time he met Joan Marshall (Stanford, '53) at a New Year’s gathering of Stanford friends in Vienna. They were married in Denver in 1958. After 21 years of marriage the couple was amicably divorced but remained good friends. Focused on writing all his life, Inman first authored a play which was performed by the Kaleidoskoptheater ensemble in

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. In the U.S. Army, he served as a linguist in Intelligence Headquarters (Northern Europe) in

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, Germany. After his discharge, he completed a year of graduate studies at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

. He later taught in the Germanic Languages Department at the

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in Seattle, and received his master's degree there. He also worked as an editor in the U.W. President's Office. In 1960, Inman and his family moved to Colorado, where he began his first novel and worked as an editor, reporter and librarian for the ''

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''. He later lived in San Francisco and New York City, where he was the editor of all six scientific journals for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, from 1983 to 1987. His publications included two novels, ''The Torturer's Horse'' (1965) and ''The Blood Endures''The blood endures: (1981). He received the

O. Henry Award The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry. The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty best ...

for a short story, "I'll Call You" (1981). Inman published other numerous short stories and articles, and was awaiting publication of a new novel, ''Delphi'', when he died suddenly at the age of 75. Inman was recognized in both

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in America and in the World. He was recognized by Men of Achievement in 1992.

References

Inman, Robert Anthony (obituary).
''San Francisco Chronicle'', Sunday, November 26, 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Inman, Robert A. 1931 births 2006 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists Writers from San Francisco Stanford University alumni American male journalists Journalists from California 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American journalists Writers Guild of America Award winners