Although he considers himself primarily a writer, John Ehle has made profound contributions to North Carolina in a variety of programs designed to help people reach their potential. Referring to Ehle, former governor Terry Sanford stated, "If I were to write a guidebook for new governors, one of my main suggestions would be that he find a novelist and put him on his staff."

The oldest of five children, John Ehle was raised in Asheville, where his father was an insurance company division director. Both of his parents were born in the Appalachian Mountains, his mother from four generations of mountain people. It is from that branch of his family that Ehle claims to inherit his gift for storytelling. Following service in World War II as a rifleman, Ehle earned his B.A. and M.A. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also taught for ten years. As a high school student competing in debate tournaments, he became interested in writing and says that he still writes works that are meant to be read aloud. During his student years at Chapel Hill, he wrote plays for the American Adventure series on NBC Radio.

John Ehle is the author of seventeen books, eleven fiction and six nonfiction. While his fiction is always based in his familiar North Carolina mountains, his nonfiction treats such varied subjects as the Civil Rights struggle, the trials of the Cherokee Nation, French wine and cheese, and Irish whiskey. His books have been translated into French, German, Swedish, Czech, Spanish, Japanese and other languages. Filled with a respectful awareness of the drama of everyday lives, his books are written in a style that critics say "portrays without frills or frippery . . . not the glories of the day but the hardships." His respect for the dignity of his subjects, fictional and non-fictional, is a common thread running through all of his work.

In his public work as well, John Ehle celebrates human dignity and the significance of personal freedom. As a member of Governor Terry Sanford's staff in the 1960s, he was the "idea man" and an integral part of the creation of the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Governor's School. He went on to serve with the White House Group for Domestic Affairs and on the First National Council of the Humanities. Ehle also helped start the North Carolina Film Board, North Carolina Institute of Outdoor Drama, the North Carolina Advancement School and the North Carolina School of Science and Math. He is one of the founders of the Awards Committee for Education that provides educational enrichment experiences for gifted young African Americans, Native Americans and white Appalachians.

John Ehle and wife Rosemary Harris reside in Winston-Salem, Penland and New York City, and they have one daughter, actress Jennifer Ehle. He has received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Thomas Wolfe Prize and the Lillian Smith Award for Southern Fiction, and he is a five-time winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. He has also received the Mayflower Award, the Governor's Award for Meritorious Service and the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities, and he holds honorary doctorates from UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Asheville, the North Carolina School of the Arts and Berea College. When asked by Wilma Dykeman in an interview which of his writings was his favorite, he replied, "The next one. That's always the answer, isn't it?"

Excerpt from Last One Home
Harper & Row, 1984

A cry of welcome escaped him. “It’s the most difficult thing in the world to be the mother to a family, with everybody going away,” she continued, hurrying the words. Whatever apparition had seized him released him then, and he was left with a deep sweat on his face and a calm attitude once more; his mouth would not close, and his eyes were open, glassy as wet marbles. The doctor came, Imogene arrived, all in a commotion, and Amanda retreated to the hall, where she was met by Mr. Wallerbee. It was over. Broken and unfinished. Even her explanation had been pieces of a bit. She stood in the hallway, weeping deeply, tears gushing from her eyes. Wallerbee put his arms around her to keep her from falling. The women on the porch began wailing steadily, knowing without being told that the end had come. Men in the yard interrupted stories about trades and cars, leaving them unfinished. Hugh, standing near his pup, felt the chill. Out of Wales and England, from old Scotland and Ulster the wail came, out of unrecorded time the women acknowledged without pain or anger an event often occurring; they accepted death without bitterness, with wave on wave of regret, mentioning in high-pitched voices the old-beyond-measure anguish of their breed; bearers of new life, sustainers of the living, bathers of the cold, of the dead. Know the dead; they are our living. Know the dead; they are our children grown old. Know the dead; they are ourselves not yet dying. Know the dead; they are the recurring reminder. Know the dead; they are free of pain. Know that the dead bury their hatreds with them. Know the dead; they are the last remaining measure. Know the dead; they are our brothers, sisters, kin. In their dirt-covered places, they are remembered without malice. Know the dead; they were reapers of grain, gatherers of apples, sellers of hogs, cropsmen of corn and hay, stealers of wild honey. Know the dead, and lift no voice in anger; life and death are twins in league together. Know the dead, whimper not one sound, but let your voice be full and from the throat and chest, let the sound rise in unworded refrain. Know the dead and call not one word to God in anger for taking what was promised. Low, bend low in the moving chairs; old women, bend over your knees. Now rock backward as your voices rise, the volume increasing as the chair rocks backward, as your bodies rise until your faces are known to us, wrinkled, mouths slackened from loose teeth, lips formed in circles. Out of your bodies came the body, into the earth goes the body, into a hole like your mouths. Bury him sooner or later; it matters little. First must be the sound of thank God for death, thank God for death, which brings us all together at last.

The Changing of the Guard. New York: Random House, 1974.

The Cheeses and Wines of England and France, with Notes on Irish Whiskey. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

Dr. Frank: Life with Frank Porter Graham. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Franklin Street Books, 1993.

The Free Men. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.

The Journey of August King. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Kingstree Island. New York: William Morrow, 1959.

The Land Breakers. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.

Last One Home. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

Lion on the Hearth. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961.

Move over Mountain. New York: Harper & Row, 1957.

The Road. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

Shepherd of the Streets: The Story of the Reverend James A. Gusweller and His Crusade on the New York West Side. New York: Sloane, 1960.

The Survivor: The Story of Eddy Hukov. New York: Henry Holt, 1958.

A Time of Drums. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

The Widow's Trial. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

The Winter People. New York: Harper & Row, 1982.

Additional information on Mr. Ehle can be found in:

"John Ehle Issue." Iron Mountain Review 3 (Spring 1987).

"John Ehle: Tribute by His Peers." Pembroke Magazine 26 (1994): 160-173. (See also Pembroke Magazine 31 (1999).

Lang, John. "The Shape of Love: The Motif of Sacrifice in Two Novels by John Ehle." Southern Literary Journal 23 (Fall 1990): 65-78.

Loy, Julia D. Folkways of the Past as Right Ways of the Future: John Ehle's Emphasis on Community Ideals in the 20th Century. Honors paper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1992.

Mashburn, Rick. "Making Education Happen: North Carolina's One-Man Think Tank." Carolina Alumni Review 72 (Winter 1984): 14-18, 28-30.

Links to further information:

John Ehle's Papers at UNC