Selected Writings of William Goyen

Mr. Goyen was the author of several collections of stories and a half-dozen novels. His work appeared in a number of magazines, including Atlantic Monthly, Mademoiselle, Redbook and the Southwest Review, where much of his fiction was first published. His latest novel, ''Arcadio,'' the first in seven years, will be brought out by Clarkson Potter, a division of Crown Publishers, on Oct. 3. Its title character is a Mexican-American hermaphrodite who appears in a vision to a boy in East Texas. The novel has already received critical notice from Publishers Weekly, which called it ''a beautifully written book that has the overwhelming power of a myth brought to life.'' Although Mr. Goyen did not receive the attention of such contemporaries as Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer, his work was greatly admired by his peers and critics. He made his mark in 1950 with a novel called ''The House of Breath.'' In 1957, the author adapted the novel into a ''ballad for the theater'' and it was performed at the Circle in the Square. Born in East Texas In the early 1960's, Mr. Goyen was affiliated with the playwrights unit of the Actors Studio. One of his short stories, ''The Letter in the Cedar Chest,'' was adapted by Greer Johnson into the play ''Whisper to Me,'' produced at the Players Theater in New York. Mr. Goyen received a fellowship in 1963 to work as a resident playwright with the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater. His books included ''Ghost and Flesh,'' ''In a Farther Country,'' ''The Faces of Blood Kindred,'' ''The Fair Sister'' and ''Come the Restorer.''