- Hunter began working as a copy editor at the Baltimore Sun in 1971 and became its film critic in 1982. He joined the Washington Post as its movie critic in 1997 and won the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award for the criticism in 1998. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2003 and took a buyout from the Post in 2008. He published The Master Sniper, the first of his 24 novels, in 1980. He also has published three nonfiction volumes: Violent Screen: A Critic's 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem; Now Playing at the Valencia: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Essays on Movies; and American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the Shoot-out that Stopped It.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Gene Mierzejewski
- Hunter has published eight books about his character Bob Lee Swagger: Point of Impact, Black Light, Time to Hunt, The 47th Samurai, Night of Thunder, I, Sniper, Dead Zero, and The Third Bullet.
In addition, he has written three prequels focusing on Bob Lee's legendary father, Earl Swagger: Hot Springs, Pale Horse Coming, and Havana. Earl also makes a cameo appearance (in flashback) in Hunter's novel The 47th Samurai. - He wrote the novelization of the movie Target (1985). His success in the years since has made 'Target' a widely sought-after used book, leading to the widespread misconception that the movie is based on the book (rather than the book being based on the movie). The misconception is reinforced by the fact that he introduced original characters into 'Target,' characters who do not appear in the movie but who have gone on to appear in a number of his more recent novels.
- Hunter cites the Patrick Alexander novel Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal as a direct inspiration for his own novel Dead Zero.
- Won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for his work as a film critic for the Washington Post.
- On the latest Bob Lee Swagger novel: "... The new book is a result of my well-documented... absorption in Samurai movie culture. It's called 'The 47th Samurai: A Bob Lee Swagger novel,' and it takes Bob to Japan in search of the sword his father recovered on Iwo that has gone missing under extremely violent circumstances. He finds himself matched against some totally bad but cool Yakuza killers and the action jumps all over Tokyo. It ends with what I had hoped to be (you guys will have to tell me if I brought it off) the coolest, most realistic one-on-one to the death sword fight in print."
- I hated it [The Last Samurai (2003)] as well, because it put the little white guy at the center of a Japanese story, and he proved to be smarter, faster and tougher than anyone. In one sense, "The 47th Samurai" is a rebuke to that movie and to the "White Samurai" genre, where that generally happens as well; I made certain that my hero didn't become a better sword fighter than the Japanese, but only a passing adequate one, with definite limits on his skills. His only chance lay in figuring out ways to cheat rather than any innate superiority and he knew that he was doomed against a first-class swordsman.
- [H]ere is the one thing I would say for people approaching and getting ready for retirement. Three words: Avoid the bitter.
Bitter will kill you. The artists of the 20th century I most respect would be Ernest Hemingway, John Ford and John Wayne. In many ways, the same men. Alpha males. Extremely, mythically successful with enormous sexual opportunities, enormous financial resources, able to indulge their every impulse, and yet all three of them ended up isolated, bitter and angry. That seems so tragic me.
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