The Chronicle of Stolen Dreams

Terry Tarnoff was born in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, a small town in the northern United States. His family later moved to Milwaukee where, at the age of twelve, he became a cub reporter for The Northwest Reporter. He was paid a penny a word to write phony letters to the editor to help fill out a half-empty newspaper. He attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison during the political upheaval of the 1960s, worked at the East Side Bookstore in New York’s East Village during the Summer of Love, lived for several years in Berkeley, then headed for Europe, where he supported himself as a blues musician, playing harmonica in bands from London to Amsterdam to Stockholm. Soon after, he hooked up with an international brigade of travelers--a new generation of expatriates who took their cues from Henry Miller, Paul Bowles, and Jack Kerouac as they pushed further down the road. That road led to the coast of Kenya and the plains of Tanzania, to the deserts of India and the mountains of Nepal, to the war-torn villages of Laos and the islands of Indonesia. Along the way, Terry explored the mysteries of Hinduism and Buddhism, played with an African band in Mombasa, performed as a singer-guitarist in the Far East, and was a founding member of a rock band in Goa, India. After eight years on the road, he returned to San Francisco in 1978, where he continued his musical career for several years before turning to writing. He has since worked as a screenwriter, taught two film courses, driven a taxi, managed an African art gallery, and written for an internet film site. Terry’s first book, ＂The Bone Man of Benares,＂ was published in the U.S. by St. Martin’s Press in 2004. It was subsequently published by Bantam Books in the U.K., by Allen & Unwin Publishers in Australia, and has been translated into Italian, Japanese, and Chinese. The book was reprinted in the U.S. by Avian Press in 2013. A one-man show adapted from ＂The Bone Man of Benares＂ was produced shortly after its initial publication by the Encore Theatre Company in San Francisco, where it had a very successful six-week run. Terry’s second book, ＂The Thousand Year Journey of Tobias Parker,＂ was published by Avian Press in March, 2013. His third book, ＂The Chronicle of Stolen Dreams,＂ was published by Avian Press in October, 2013. Terry lives in San Francisco with his wife, artist Tina Tarnoff.