Born in 1936 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, in the USA, Tuten is the son of a Sicilian mother and a French-Huguenot father. His father left their family when Tuten was young, and though they were never close, his father eventually was a part of Tuten's life before his death.

Tuten received his undergraduate degree from the City College of New York. After studying pre-Columbian art history at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and travelling through South America writing on Brazilian cinema, he earned a Ph.D. in 19th-century American literature from New York University, concentrating on Melville, Whitman, and James Fenimore Cooper, and taught literature and American cinema in France at the University of Paris VIII.

Tuten spent 15 years heading the graduate program in creative writing at the City College of New York, which he co-founded. In that capacity, he championed the work of students Walter Mosley, Oscar Hijuelos, Philip Graham, Aurelie Sheehan, Salar Abdoh, Ernesto Quiñonez, and many others. He also teaches classes on experimental writing at The New School. He is on the board of advisors for Guernica Magazine and executive editor of Smyles & Fish. Tuten's short fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Fence, Fiction, Granta, The New Review of Literature, and Tri-Quarterly. In 1973, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing and in 2001 was given the Award for Distinguished Writing from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Tuten is also a well-known figure within the art world. He has worked as an art and film critic in various venues and often incorporates allusions to these fields in his fiction as well. Tuten was a close personal friend of Roy Lichtenstein and published several essays on his work, as well as catalogue essays for many other artists including John Baldessari, Eric Fischl, R.B. Kitaj, and David Salle.

Tuten currently resides in New York City's East Village.

Novels

• "My Autobiography : Portable, with Commentary", Conjunctions 40, Spring 2003.
• "In the Borghese Gardens," The New Review of Literature Vol. 1, October 2003.

Tuten's first collection of short stories entitled Self Portraits: Fictions will be published by W. W. Norton on 13 September 2010 and include the following stories:

• "The Park Near Marienbad", Conjunctions 42, Spring 2004.
• "Voyagers", Conjunctions 44, Spring 2005.
• "The Park in Winter," Fence Vol.8, Summer 2005.
• " The Ship at Anchor", Granta 91, September 2005.
• " Self Portrait with Icebergs", KGB Bar Lit, 2005.
• "Self Portrait with Cheese", "Roy Lichtenstein: Conversations with Surrealism, Exhibition Catalogue: Mitchell-Innes & Nash, October 2005; reprinted in Smyles & Fish 1, Fall 2006.
• "Self Portrait with Beach", Mona Kuhn : Evidence, 2007 ISBN 3865213723; reprinted in Conjunctions 48, Spring 2007, and in Harper's, August 2007;
• "Self Portrait with Sicily," Conjunctions, Spring 2008.
• " The Bar on Tompkins Square Park: Self Portrait with Blue Horse", BOMB Magazine, Summer 2009.
• "The Park on Fire"
• "Self Portrait with Circus"
• "Self Portrait with Bullfight"

Essays