James Norman

Born in 1912, James Norman was an American author whose papers are held by Ohio University, where his life and writing career are documented. Those records describe a writer who worked across fiction, journalism, and nonfiction, and who later became connected with university teaching.

A major part of his life was spent in Mexico. Ohio University’s collection notes that he served as director of creative writing at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende from 1958 to 1961 and again from 1980 to 1983, and that he was a writer in residence at Hanover College in 1965. His books reflect those interests, including Mexican Hill Town, Charro: Mexican Horseman, and Ancestral Voices: Decoding Ancient Languages.

His nonfiction shows a wide curiosity about place, tradition, and the past. In one book he wrote about the Mexican charro and charreada, and in another he traced the work of scholars deciphering ancient languages. He died in 1983.