Patrick Rothfuss

Patrick Rothfuss is an American fantasy writer from Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point with an English degree in 2000, later returning to teach there while working on the manuscript that became The Name of the Wind. He also founded Worldbuilders, a charitable organization rooted in the science-fiction and fantasy community.

Rothfuss writes epic fantasy with an unusual emphasis on storytelling itself. The Kingkiller Chronicle follows Kvothe, an innkeeper recounting how he became a celebrated and feared figure. Its framed, first-person narrative sets private memory against public legend, while music, education, poverty and the cost of ambition run through the story. Rothfuss’s prose often slows for songs, riddles and the mechanics of magic.

The Name of the Wind, published in 2007, won the Quill Award for science fiction, fantasy and horror and appeared on Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year list. Rothfuss continued Kvothe’s account in The Wise Man’s Fear, then explored other characters from the same world in The Slow Regard of Silent Things and The Narrow Road Between Desires.

New readers should begin with The Name of the Wind. It introduces Kvothe through both halves of his identity: the quiet keeper of the Waystone Inn and the gifted, reckless young performer whose exploits have already hardened into legend. It is also the necessary entrance to the later books.