Writers 1920-2008
Return to home
Writers before 1920
1920
Apr 1, Toshiro Mifune, writer, actor (Shogun), was
born in Tsing-tao, China.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1920 Apr 3, F. Scott Fitzgerald
and Zelda Sayre were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York
City.
(HN, 4/3/02)
1920 Apr 5, Arthur Hailey
(d.2004), author, was born in Luton, England. His later novels
in-cluded “Hotel” and ”Airport.”
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1920 May 8, Sloan Wilson, American
author, was born in Norwalk, Conn. He wrote "The man in the Gray
Flannel Suit" and "A Summer Place."
(HN, 5/8/99)(MC, 5/8/02)
1920 May 10, Richard Adams,
English novelist (Watership Down), was born.
(HN, 5/10/02)
1920 Aug 3, P.D. James (Phyllis
Dorothy James), British mystery writer, was born.
(HN, 8/3/00)
1920 Aug 22, Ray Bradbury, science
fiction writer whose works include "The Martian Chroni-cles" and
"Fahrenheit 451," was born.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-3)(HN, 8/22/98)
1920 Isaac Babel (d.1940) wrote a
wartime diary as he rode horseback with Budyonny’s First Cavalry Army
as the Cossacks participated in the Bolshevik invasion of Poland. An
essay on the diary was written by Cynthia Ozick in her 1996 book: "Fame
& Folly."
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-18)
1920 F. Scott Fitzgerald (23)
authored his 1st novel “This Side of Paradise.”
(WSJ, 7/29/06, p.P12)(www.bartleby.com/115/)
1920 Sigmund Freud authored
"Beyond the Pleasure Principle."
(WSJ, 5/5/06, p.A16)
1920 William Dean Howells
published his last novel "Vacation at the Kelwyn’s." In it he
sati-rized the romances of the 1860s and 1870s.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.37)
1920 Ernst Juenger (Jünger)
(d.1998) published his first book "In Storms of Steel." The book
glorified the horrors of WW I and put him in the rank of militant
nationalists whose writings helped pave the way for the Third Reich. In
2003 Michael Hoffman made a translation, Storm of Steel, to English.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.A18)(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1920 Sinclair Lewis (1865-1951)
authored "Main Street."
(WSJ, 1/18/02, p.W8)
1920 "The Story of Dr. Doolittle"
by Hugh Lofting was published.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1920 Eugene O’Neill wrote his
first full-length play "Beyond the Horizon."
(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A20)
1920 S. Ansky (b.1863),
Russian-Jewish journalist and playwright, died. In 2003 Joachim
Neugroschel edited and translated "The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey
Through the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I."
(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.M4)
1920-1933 Joseph Roth, Austrian novelist, spent this
period in Berlin. In 2002 his writings from this time were translated
by Michael Hofmann and published as "What I Saw: Reports From Berlin
1920-1933."
(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M3)
1921 Feb 14, The Literary Review
faced obscenity charges in NY for publishing "Ulysses" by James Joyce.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1921 May 12, Farley Mowat,
Canadian nature writer (Never Cry Wolf), was born.
(HN, 5/12/01)
1921 May 23, James [Benjamin]
Blish, US-UK sci-fi author (Hugo, Black Easter, Star Trek
Reader), was born.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1921 Aug 3, Hayden Carruth,
novelist (Crow & Heart), was born in Waterbury, Ct.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Aug 20, Jacqueline Susann,
author (Valley of the Dolls), was born in Phila., Pa.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1921 Aug 25, Brian Moore, Irish
novelist, was born. His work included "The Lonely Passion of Judith
Hearne."
(HN, 8/25/00)
1921 Aug 26, Ben Bradlee, editor,
journalist, executive (Washington Post), was born in Bos-ton.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1921 Mary Clarissa Miller, pen
name Agatha Christie, published her 1st novel.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.C5)
1921 Sheila Kaye-Smith wrote her
novel "Joanna Godden."
(SFEC, 11/17/96, DB p.40)
1921 Eugene O’Neill wrote his
expressionist drama "The Hairy Ape," about a boiler stoker on a
transatlantic liner.
(WSJ, 4/4/97, p.A7)(WM, www,1999)
1921 Edith Wharton won the
Pulitzer Prize for her novel "Age of Innocence" (1920).
(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.8)
1921 In China Lu Xun authored his
allegorical novella “The Story of Ah Q.” It contained damning
insights into the “feudal” thinking of the time.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.54)
1921 Yevgeny Zamyatin (d.1937),
Russian author, completed his novel “We.” It offended communist censors
and did not appear in print in Russia until 1988. Editions outside
Russia be-came available in 1924. In 2006 Natasha Randall made a new
English translation.
(WSJ, 7/26/06, p.D11)
1922 Mar 12, Jack Kerouac,
American novelist, was born. He wrote "On the Road."
(HN, 3/12/99)
1922 Apr 13, John Gerard Braine,
British novelist (Room at the Top), was born.
(HN, 4/13/01)
1922 Apr 16, Kingsley Amis
(d.1995), novelist and poet, was born. He wrote more than 20 novels and
6 volumes of verse. His work included "The King’s English: A Guide to
Modern Us-age." In 1998 Eric Jacobs published the biography "Kingsley
Amis."
(WSJ, 10/23/95, p.A-1)(SFEC, 7/19/98, BR p.3)(HN,
4/16/01)
1922 Jun 27, The Newberry Medal
was 1st presented for kids literature to Hendrik Van Loon.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald authored
his 2nd novel “The Beautiful and Damned.”
(WSJ, 7/29/06, p.P12)
1922 Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)
published his novel "Siddhartha," a short lyric novel of a father-son
relationship based on the early life of Buddha and inspired by Hesse’s
travels through India. In 1951 it was translated to English.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.C12)(iUniv. 7/2/00)(WSJ, 8/5/06,
p.P8)
1922 Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
authored his novel “The Castle.”
(WSJ, 8/7/07, p.D10)
1922 Sinclair Lewis (1965-1951)
published his novel "Babbitt," a small-town saga of a real es-tate
agent.
(WSJ, 7/13/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 1/18/02, p.W8)
1923 Jan 31, Norman Mailer
(d.2007), NYC mayoral candidate, novelist (Naked and the Dead), was
born in NJ. In 1999 Mary V. Dearborn published "Norman Mailer: A
Biography."
(SFEC, 12/26/99, BR p.7)(SSFC, 11/11/07, p.A7)
1923 Mar 27, Louis Simpson,
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born.
(HN, 3/27/01)
1923 Apr 21, John Mortimor,
British barrister and playwright, was born. He created Rumpole of the
Bailey.
(HN, 4/21/99)
1923 May 1, Joseph Heller
(d.1999), American author, was born in Brooklyn, NY. His work included
the novel "Catch 22."
(HN, 5/1/99)(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A10)(MC, 5/1/02)
1923 May 25, John Weitz, spy,
author, fashion designer (Friends in High Places), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1923 Jul 10, Jean Kerr (d.2003),
playwright and author, was born in Scranton, Pa. Her later books
included "Please Don’t Eat the Daisies."
(SFC, 1/7/03, p.A22)
1923 Jul 17, James Purdy, writer
(Cabot Wright Begins), was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1923 Aug 24, Kate Douglas Wiggin
(66), author (US kindergarten movement), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1923 Felix Salten (1869-1945) a
Viennese Jew, wrote his antifascist allegory "Bambi, A Life in the
Woods." It was translated into English by Whittaker Chambers (28) and
published by Simon & Schuster in 1928. In 1942 it was made
into an animated Disney.
(WSJ, 10/14/97,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Salten)
1923 Rudyard Kipling authored “The
Irish Guards in the Great War,” a history of the unit that his son
fought and died for in WW I.
(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1924 May 1, Terry Southern,
novelist and screenwriter (Candy, The Magic Christian, Dr. Strangelove,
Easy Rider), was born.
(HN, 5/1/01)(MC, 5/1/02)
1924 Jun 3, Franz Kafka (b.1883),
Czech writer, died. He was born in Prague and authored "The Castle" and
"The Trial," both published after his death. Kafka had requested that
his pa-pers be burned after his death, but his friend, Max Brod, kept
them and carried them to Tel Aviv when he fled Prague in 1939. A
critical German edition of The Castle was published in 1982 and an
English translation of that edition came out in 1998. In 1927 Max Brod
edited Kafka’s unfinished manuscript called "The Man Who Disappeared"
and published it as "Amerika." In 2005 Roberto Calasso authored “K,” a
contemporary evaluation of Kafka’s work.
(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.11)(SSFC,
12/8/02, p.M4)(SSFC, 2/20/05, p.B1)(SFC, 8/18/08, p.A12)
1924 Aug 3, Leon Uris, writer, was
born. His works included "Battle Cry" and "Exodus."
(HN, 8/3/00)
1924 Aug 3, Joseph Conrad
(b.1857), Ukraine-born and Poland-raised novelist (Jozef Teodor Konrad
Korzeniowski), died in England. In 2008 Jim Stape authored “The Several
Lives of Jo-seph Conrad.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad)
1924 Aug 15, Robert Oxton Bolt,
English screenwriter and playwright, was born. He is best known for "A
Man for all Seasons."
(HN, 8/15/00)(MC, 8/15/02)
1924 Dec 25, Rod Serling (d.1975),
writer and host (Twilight Zone, Night Gallery), was born in Syracuse,
NY. He was also the author of "Requiem for a Heavyweight." He was
remembered in the PBS production titled: "Submitted for Your Approval,"
first broadcast on 11/29/95.
(WSJ, 11/27/95, p.A-14)(Internet)
1924 Anita Loos authored
“Gentlemen Preferred Blondes.”
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.W7)
1924 Frances Hodgson Burnett
(b.1849), English author, died. In 2004 Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
authored “Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of
The Secret Garden.”
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.82)
1925 Mar 25, Flannery O'Connor
(d.1964), novelist and short story writer, was born in Savan-nah,
Georgia.
(www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-498)(WUD, 1994 p.997)
1925 Apr 2, George MacDonald
Fraser, poet, author (Flashman at the Charge), was born.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1925 Apr 10, The novel "The Great
Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published by Scribner's of
New York. A film version was made in 1974.
(TMC, 1994, p.1925)(SFEC, 2/16/97, Par. p.18)(AP,
4/9/97)
1925 May 14, Henry Rider Haggard,
English writer (Dawn, She), died.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1925 May 27, Tony Hillerman,
mystery novelist (The Blessing Way, Sacred Clowns), was born.
(HN, 5/27/01)
1925 Aug 12, Norris McWhirter,
author (Guinness Book of World Records), was born.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1925 Aug 12, Ross McWhirter,
author (Guinness Book of World Records), was born.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1925 Theodore Dreiser authored his
novel “An American Tragedy,” a portrayal of the rapidly changing
country.
(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.P10)
1925 Pramoedya Ananta Toer,
writer, was born in Indonesia. He was jailed for 2 years by the Dutch
in 1947 and spent years in a labor camp under the Suharto regime. His
novels included “This Earth Mankind.”
(WSJ, 8/10/04, p.D8)
1926 Mar 24, Dario Fo, Italian
actor and playwright, was born in Leggiuno Sangiano on the banks of
Lake Maggiore. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A15)(HN, 3/24/01)
1926 Mar 31, John Fowles (d.2005),
English novelist, was born. His work included “The Col-lector” (1963)
and “The French Lieutenant's Woman” (1969).
(HN, 3/31/01)(SFC, 11/8/05, p.B5)
1926 Apr 16, Book of the Month
Club sent out its 1st selections: "Lolly Willowes" & "Loving
Huntsman" by Sylvia Townsend Warner.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1926 Apr 23, J.P. Donlevey,
American-born Irish writer (The Ginger Man), was born.
(HN, 4/23/01)
1926 Apr 28, Harper Lee, American
novelist, was born. Her 1960 book, "To Kill a Mocking-bird" won a
Pulitzer.
(HN, 4/28/99)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.M3)
1926 May 3, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Sinclair Lewis (Arrowsmith).
(MC, 5/3/02)
1926 May 5, Sinclair Lewis refused
his Pulitzer Prize for "Arrowsmith."
(MC, 5/5/02)
1926 May 15, Anthony Shaffer,
English playwright (Sleuth), twin brother of Peter Shaffer, was born.
(HN, 5/15/01)
1926 May 15, Peter Shaffer,
English playwright (Equus, Amadeus), twin brother of Anthony Shaffer,
was born.
(HN, 5/15/01)
1926 May 21, Robert Creeley, poet,
was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1926 May 25, M von der Grün,
writer, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1927 Mar 22, Federico Garcia
Lorca's "El Maleficio," premiered in Madrid.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1927 Apr 15, Francesco Gaeta (47),
Italian poet (Di Giacomo), died.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1927 May 22, Peter Mathiessen,
writer, was born.
(HN, 5/22/01)
1927 May 25, Robert Ludlum, spy
novelist (Bourne Identity), was born in NYC.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1927 Jun 30, James Goldman,
author, playwright (Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid), was born.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1927 Jul 19, Jan Myrdal, Swedish
writer, journalist (Albania Defiant), was born.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1927 Jul 25, Midge Decter, writer
and editor, was born in St. Paul Minn.
(HN, 7/25/02)
1927 Herbert Asbury wrote "The
Gangs of New York." The book established the Five Points district as
the mythic slum.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.46)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A19)
1927 Julien Benda (1867-1956),
French writer, authored “La Trahison des Clercs,” (Treason of the
Clerks). The title of the English translation was The Betrayal of the
Intellectuals. The book described the politicization of Western
intellectuals, above all their willingness to abandon the disinterested
search for truth.
{France. Writer, Books}
(WSJ, 6/10/08,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Benda)
1927 Willa Cather authored “Death
Comes for the Archbishop.” Bishop Jean Marie Latour, her novel’s hero,
was the fictional name for the French Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy,
dispatched as a priest by Rome in 1850 to bring order and discipline to
the New Mexican territory.
(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.D10)
1927 Ernest Hemingway published
his novel "Fiesta."
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.E3)
1927 Hermann Hesse published
"Steppenwolf," a novel about a writer who despises middle class and
Western values, but suffers from his feelings of emotional isolation.
(iUniv. 7/2/00)
1927 DuBose Heyward and his wife
Dorothy based a play called "Porgy" on his novel "Porgy."
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.12)
1927 D.H. Lawrence wrote his story
"The Man Who Died," in which Jesus becomes a lover of a priestess of
Isis.
(WSJ, 10/14/98, p.A20)
1927 Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
authored his novel “Elmer Gantry.” A 1960 film version starred Burt
Lancaster.
(WSJ, 12/28/07, p.W13)
1927 V.L. Parrington wrote "Main
Currents in American Thought." It is considered one of the most
important history books of the 30s.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-16)
1927 Margaret Sanger wrote "What
Every Boy and Girl Should Know."
(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A16)
1927 Upton Sinclair published his
novel "Oil," based on the development of oil in southern California.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.7)
1927 Thornton Wilder wrote "The
Bridge of San Luis Rey." It was set in Peru in the early 1700s when a
rope bridge broke that sent 5 people to their death.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, BR p.8)
1928 Jan 11, Thomas Hardy (87),
English novelist, died near Dorchester. His books included “Far from
Maddening Crowd” (1874) and “Jude the Obscure” (1895). In 2006 Claire
Tomalin au-thored “Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy)(Econ,
11/11/06, p.96)
1928 Mar 6, Gabriel
Garcia-Marquez, Columbian-born novelist (One Hundred Years of
Soli-tude, Love in the Time of Cholera), was born.
(HN, 3/6/01)
1928 Mar 12, Edward Albee,
American dramatist who wrote "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf," was born.
(HN, 3/12/00)
1928 Apr 17, Cynthia Ozick, writer
(The Cannibal Galaxy, The Messiah of Stockholm), was born.
(HN, 4/17/01)
1928 May 7, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Thornton Wilder for Bridge of San Luis Rey.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1928 May 24, William Trevor, Irish
short story writer and novelist (The Old Boys, The Board-ing House),
was born.
(HN, 5/24/01)
1928 Jul 2, Pavel Kohout, Czech
author (Poor Murderer), was born.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1928 Jul 16, Anita Brookner,
writer (Hotel du Lac), was born.
(HN, 7/16/01)
1928 Jul 26, Bernice Rubens, Welsh
novelist and filmmaker, was born.
(HN, 7/26/01)
1928 Aug, Buck Rogers first
appeared as Anthony Rogers in a short space opera, "Armageddon-2419
A.D." by Philip Francis Nowlan, published in the August 1928 issue of
Amazing Stories.
(www.buck-rogers.com/amazing_stories/)
1928 Sep 6, Robert Pirzig, author,
was born. His work included “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
(HN, 9/6/00)
1928 Herbert Asbury authored "The
Gangs of New York." In 2002 it was made into a film.
(SFC, 12/30/02, p.D1)
1929 Mar 28, Frederick Exley,
American novelist (A Fan's Notes), was born.
(HN, 3/28/01)
1929 Apr 1, Milan Kundera, Czech
writer (The Farewell Party, The Unbearable Lightness of Being), was
born.
(HN, 4/1/01)
1929 May 16, Adrienne Rich, poet
(Diving into the Wreck), was born.
(HN, 5/16/01)
1929 Jul 26, Jean Shepherd,
humorist (Playboy satire Award 1966, 1967, 1969), was born.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1929 Jul 27, Jack Higgins, [Harry
Patterson], novelist, was born.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1929 Oct 21, Ursula Kroeber Le
Guin, science fiction writer, was born. Her work included "The Left
Hand of Darkness."
(HN, 10/21/00)(MC, 10/21/01)
1929 Aug 27, Ira Levin, author
(Rosemary Baby, Boys From Brazil, This Perfect Day), was born.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1929 Stephen Vincent Benet won the
Pulitzer Prize for his Civil War epic "John Brown’s Body." In 2002 the
work was performed by inmates at San Quentin Prison under the direction
of Joseph De Francesca.
(SFC, 1/2/98, p.C20)(SFC, 11/19/02, p.D1)
1929 Jean Cocteau wrote his novel
"Les Enfants Terribles" while in a sanatorium trying to shake his opium
habit. He narrated the 1950 film version. In 1997 it was made into an
opera by Philip Glass.
(WSJ, 11/26/96, p.A16)(SFC, 10/12/97, DB p.40)
1929 Henry Green (1905-1973),
English writer, authored “Living,” a novel of working class factory
life.
(WSJ, 9/20/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Green)
1929 Agnes Smedley (1892-1950),
American journalist and writer, authored her semi-autobiographical
novel “Daughter of Earth.” Smedley, an advocate for women, children,
peas-ants and liberation for the oppressed, then moved to China and
covered the civil war there.
(SFC, 1/10/08,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Smedley)
1930 Feb 14, “The Maltese Falcon,"
by SF based writer Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), was published.
(SFC, 6/7/04, p.C1)
1930 Apr 21, Robert S. Bridges
(85), poet laureate (Testament of beauty), died.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1930 Apr 25, Paul Mazursky, US
writer, director (Moscow on the Hudson), was born.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1930 May 8, Gary Snyder, beat
poet, was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1930 May 12, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Marc Connelly (Green Pastures).
(MC, 5/12/02)
1930 May 17, Herbert Croly
(b.1869), American liberal political author, died. His books in-cluded
“The Promise of American Life” (1909).
(WSJ, 1/4/08,
p.W5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Croly)
1930 Jul 7, Arthur Conan Doyle
(b.1859), British novelist, died. His work included 4 Sherlock Holmes
mystery novels and 56 short stories about Holmes. Doyle was an eye
doctor. In 1999 Daniel Stashower published "Teller of Tales: The Life
of Arthur Conan Doyle." In 2007 Andrew Lycett authored “Conan Doyle:
The Man who Created Sherlock Holmes.”
(SFEC, 6/13/99, Par
p.12)(www.sherlockian.net/acd/)(ON, 3/06, p.12)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.98)
1930 Jul 27, David Hughes, English
novelist (The Horsehair Sofa, The Man Who Invented Tomorrow), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1930 Mary Ware Dennett wrote: "The
Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People." It was found on
appeal not to be obscene under the 1873 Comstock Act.
(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A20)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)
1930 Freud published his
"Civilization and Its Discontents." Here he developed his ideas of 1915
and added that men are: "on the contrary, creatures among whose
instinctual endow-ments is to be reckoned a powerful share of
aggressiveness. Homo homini lupus. (Man is a wolf to man.)
(V.D.-H.K.p.294)
1930 Ales Hrdlicka published his
"Skeletal Remains of Early Man." It is still the fullest and most
detailed descriptive, historical account that has been written on the
subject.
(DD-EVTT, p.139)
c1930 "The Secret Museum of
Mankind," a pastiche of world exotica from postcards and doc-tored
National Geographic photographs was published.
(NH, 6/97, p.65)
1930 Rolf de Mare, patron of the
Swedish Ballet, established the Archives Internationales de la Danse in
Paris, France.
(SFEM, 6/9/96, p.34)
1930 Dawn Powell wrote her novel
"Dance Night."
(WSJ, 10/19/98, p.A24)
1930 The first "Savoy Cocktail
Book" was published. It was called the Holy Writ of the drinks world.
(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.W8)
1930 Moss Hart, American
playwright and librettist, wrote "Once in a Lifetime," a collaboration
with George S. Kaufman. It was called the mother of all Hollywood
satires.
(WUD, 1994, p.648)(SFEC, 7/13/97, DB p.11)(WSJ,
6/3/98, p.A16)
1930 Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966),
English writer, authored his novel “Vile Bodies.”
(WSJ, 1/10/09, p.W8)
1931 Jan 6, Edgar Laurence
Doctorow (E.L. Doctorow), novelist (World's Fair, Ragtime), was born in
NYC.
(www.albany.edu/writers-inst/doctorow.html)
1931 Apr 1, Rolf Hochhuth, German
playwright (Deputy), was born.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1931 Apr 7, Donald Barthelme
(d.1989), US writer, was born in Philadelphia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Barthelme)(WSJ,
2/21/09, p.W8)
1931 May 7, Gene [Rodman] Wolfe,
US, sci-fi author (Soldier of Arete), was born.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1931 Jul 4, Novelist James Joyce
(22) married Nora Barnacle (20) in London. They legalized their 26-year
common-law marriage at the Kensington Registry Office in London.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.69)
1931 Jul 10, Alice Munro, Canadian
writer (Open Secrets, Friend of my Youth), was born.
(HN, 7/10/01)
1931 Sep 12, Kristin Hunter,
author, was born. Her work included "God Bless the Child" and
"The Survivors."
(HN, 9/12/00)
1931 Dashiell Hammett authored his
mystery thriller “The Glass Key.” It was made into a film in 1942.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, DB p.51)(WSJ, 4/15/06, p.P16)
1931 Noel Coward stayed at the
Sassoon House in Shanghai for four days and wrote his "Pri-vate Lives."
(Hem. 1/95, p. 84)
1931 Irma S. Rombauer published
the first volume of "Joy of Cooking."
(SFC,11/12/97, Z1 p.1)
1931 Writer Lincoln Steffens
published his "Autobiography." It was an enormous success.
(HNQ, 10/4/98)
1931 Nathanael West (1902-1940)
wrote his first novel "The Dream Life of Balso Snell."
(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A12)
1931 "Morning Becomes Electra" by
Eugene O’Neill was first produced. He adopted the Aes-chylus "Oresteia"
trilogy to a New England family, the Mannons, in the days just after
the Ameri-can Civil War. The three parts were called "Homecoming," "The
Hunted" and "The Haunted."
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A16)
1932 Feb 7, Gay Talese, author
(Honor Thy Father), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1932 Mar 18, John Updike, American
poet, novelist, was born. He wrote "Witches of East-wick."
(HN, 3/18/99)
1932 Apr 15, Eva Figes, British
novelist, was born.
(HN, 4/15/01)
1932 Apr 21, Elaine May, comedy
writer, was born.
(HN, 4/21/01)
1932 Apr 27, American poet Hart
Crane (32) drowned after jumping from a steamer while en route to New
York. In 1967 R.W.B. Lewis (d. 2002) authored "The Poetry of Hart
Crane."
(AP, 4/27/97)(SFC, 6/17/02, p.B5)
1932 May 2, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Pearl S. Buck for "The Good Earth."
(MC, 5/2/02)
1932 May 7, Jenny Joseph, English
poet and novelist (The Thinking Heart, The Inland Sea), was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1932 May 25, John Gregory Dunne
(d.2003), author, screenwriter and husband of Joan Did-ion, was born in
Hartford, Conn.
(HN, 5/25/01)(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A23)
1932 May 28, Stephen Birmingham,
novelist and biographer (Real Lace: America's Irish Rich), was born in
Hartford.
(HN, 5/28/01)(MC, 5/28/02)
1932 Aug 17, V.S, Naipaul
(b.1932), English novelist (Middle Passage), was born in Cha-guana,
Trinidad. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.
(SFC, 10/12/01, p.C1)(SC, 8/17/02)
1932 Aug 27, Antonia Fraser,
biographer (Mary Queen of Scots), was born.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1932 Columbia professor Adolf
Berle and researcher Gardiner means wrote "The Modern Corporation,"
wherein they argued that with the rise of the public corporation, the
owners had lost control and that managers had gained the upper hand
over small shareholders.
(WSJ, 4/18/96, p.C-1)
1932 Louis-Ferdinand Celine
(1894-1961), French physician and writer, authored “Journey to the End
of Night.”
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lfceline.htm)(WSJ, 9/23/06,
p.P8)
1932 Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
authored her novel “Save Me the Waltz.”
(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.M6)
1932 Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave
New World." A 2-hour TV version was made in 1998.
(WSJ, 4/13/98, p.A20)
1932 John Steinbeck wrote his
novel "The Red Pony." It was made into a 1948 film.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)
1932 Philip Stong published his
novel “State Fair.” It was made into a non-musical film in 1933 and in
1945 became a musical film with songs by Richard Rogers and Oscar
Hammerstein.
(WSJ, 8/16/06, p.D12)
1932 Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote
"Little House in the Big Woods," the first of a series. A biog-raphy
"Laura Ingalls Wilder: Storyteller of the Prairie" was written in 1997
by Ginger Wad-sworth.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, BR. p.10)
1932 Eugene O’Neill’s play,
"Strange Interlude," opened in Quincy, Mass. The crowds saved the
restaurant across the street owned by Howard Johnson.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, Z1p.10)
1932 Edna Ferber and George S.
Kaufman co-wrote the Broadway comedy "Dinner at Eight."
(WSJ, 2/9/96, p.A-10)
1933 Mar 19, Phillip Roth,
American novelist and short-story writer (Portnoy's Complaint), was
born.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1933 Apr 19, Etheridge Knight,
poet, was born.
(HN, 4/1901)
1933 May 4, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Archibald Macleish (Conquistador).
(MC, 5/4/02)
1933 May 10, Barbara Taylor
Bradford, author, was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1933 May 12, Andrey Andreyevich
Voznesensky, Russian poet, was born.
(HN, 5/12/01)
1933 May 14, Richard P. Brickner,
novelist (The Broken Year), was born.
(HN, 5/14/01)
1933 Jul 20, Cormac McCarthy,
novelist (All the Pretty Horses), was born.
(HN, 7/20/01)
1933 Jul 21, John Gardner
(d.1982), poet and novelist (Grendel, October Light), was born.
(HN, 7/21/02)
1933 Dec 8, Patrick Leigh Fermor
(b.1915), London-born student, set off to walk the length of Europe,
from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. He later recounted his
adventures in “A Time of Gifts” (1977) and “Between the Woods and the
Water” (1986). He was later widely re-garded as Britain’s greatest
travel writer.
(WSJ, 11/24/07,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Leigh_Fermor)
1933 Charles Henri Ford (d.2002 at
94) authored "The Young and Evil," considered by some to be the 1st gay
novel. It was based on Ford’s adventures in Greenwich Village and was
banned in the US until the 1960s.
(SFC, 10/1/02, p.A18)
1934 Apr 10, David Halberstam, New
York Times correspondent, author, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1964, was
born.
(HN, 4/10/01)
1934 Apr 12, The
F. Scott Fitzgerald novel "Tender Is the Night" was first published by
Scrib-ner's in New York. It had been serialized in Scribner's Magazine.
(AP, 4/12/07)
1934 May 7, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Sidney Kingsley (Men in White).
(MC, 5/7/02)
1934 May 25, David J. Burke,
writer, was born in Liverpool, England.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1934 May 27, Harlan [Jay] Ellison,
US sci-fi author (7 Hugos, Doomsman, Babylon 5), was born.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1934 Jun 21, [James] Thorne Smith,
US fantasy author (Stray Lamb, Turnabout), died.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1934 Aug 7, The U.S. Court of
Appeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down the govern-ment's
attempt to ban the controversial James Joyce novel "Ulysses."
(AP, 8/7/97)
1934 James M. Cain authored "The
Postman Always Rings Twice." It became one of the most popular
"hard-boiled" crime novels ever written. It is said that Albert Camus
was so taken with the book that he used it as a model for "The
Stranger."
(iUniv. 7/1/00)(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W8)
1934 Robert Graves authored “I,
Claudius.”
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.P10)
1934 George Orwell published his
1st novel “Burmese Days.” In 2005 Emma Larkin authored “Finding George
Orwell in Burma.”
(SFEC, 10/22/00, p.T9)(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.B3)
1934 Dashiell Hammett
(1894-1961) authored “The Thin Man.”
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0358591/)(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.4)
1934 Janet Lewis wrote "The
Invasion," a historical novel on the interplay of French, English and
Indian cultures on the American frontier. [first source says it was
published in 1932]
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.C2)(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.C14)
1934 William Maxwell (1908-2000)
published his 1st novel: "Bright Center of Heaven." Max-well went on to
become an editor for the New Yorker.
(SFC, 8/2/00, p.A24)
1934 Henry Miller’s novel "Tropic
of Cancer" was published by the French publisher Girodias.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.6)
1934 William Saroyan (1908-1981),
Fresno, Ca., writer and painter, published his first book, a collection
of short stories that included “The Daring Young Man on the Flying
Trapeze.”
(SSFC, 10/11/09, DB p.46)
1934 Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966),
English writer, authored “Ninety-Two Days.” It was based on his 1932
travels in Brazil and British Guiana.
(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W8)
1934 William Phillips (d.2002 at
94) co-founded the Partisan Revue along with critic Philip Rahv as an
organ of the John Reed Club associated with the Communist Party. It
severed ties with the party in 1937 and went on to showcase some of the
finest writers of the era.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A19)
1934 Upton Sinclair, muckraker and
socialist, ran for governor of California and wrote "I, gov-ernor of
California and how I ended poverty: A true story of the future." It
spoke of his utopian scheme called EPIC (End Poverty in California). He
was defeated by Frank Merriam (1865-1955). In 1992 Greg Mitchell
authored “The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for
Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics.”
(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.5)(SFC, 1/12/05, p.E3)
1935 Apr 6, Edward Arlington
Robinson, US poet, died.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1935 Apr 8, The Emergency Relief
Appropriation Act authorized $5 billion to increase em-ployment and for
useful projects including the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
President Franklin Roosevelt proposed the Works Progress Administration
(WPA) during the Great De-pression of the 1930s when almost 25 percent
of Americans were unemployed. The WPA cre-ated low-paying federal jobs
to provide immediate relief. The WPA put 8.5 million jobless to work on
projects as diverse as constructing highways, bridges and public
buildings to arts pro-grams like the Federal Writers' Project. Writers
were paid to produce comprehensive guide-books for each of the US
states and Washington DC. In 2008 Nick Taylor authored “”American-Made:
The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, When FDR Put America to Work.”
(AP, 4/8/97)(HN, 4/8/98)(HNPD, 4/8/99)(SFC, 3/12/08,
p.E2)(WSJ, 2/17/09, p.A13)
1935 Apr 12, Germany prohibited
the publishing of "not-Aryan" writers.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1935 May 29, André P.
Brink, South African writer (Dry White Season), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1935 Aug 22, E. Annie Proulx,
writer, was born in Connecticut. Her novels included "Post-cards" and
"The Shipping News."
(HN, 8/22/00)
1935 Aug 31, Eldridge Cleaver,
political activist and author of "Soul on Fire," was born.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1935 Samuel Fuller (d.1997 at 86)
wrote his novel "Burn Baby Burn."
(SFC,11/1/97, p.A17)
1935 Robert E. Howard, pulp
fiction writer, created his Conan the Barbarian, the Sonora Kid,
Solomon Kane and other characters. His romance with Novalyne Price
Ellis formed the basis for the 1996 film "The Whole Wide World." It was
based on her memoir "One Who Walked Alone."
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.C3)(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A7)
1935 Ella Maillart (d.1997 at 94),
Swiss sportswoman, wrote "Among Russian Youth: from Moscow to the
Caucasus." In 1947 she took a trip to Afghanistan with a sick,
morphine-addicted friend and wrote "The Cruel Way, Two Women and a Ford
in Afghanistan."
(SFC, 3/29/97, p.A20)
1935 John O’Hara authored his
novel “Butterfield 8.” In 1960 it was made into a film.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, DB p.39)(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.W10)
1935 John Steinbeck wrote his
novel "Tortilla Flat."
(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)
1935 An edition of Mark Twain’s
notebooks was published. "If you tell the truth, you don’t have to
remember anything."
(WSJ, 1/26/96, A-11)
1935 Marguerite Veiller wrote her
murder mystery play "The Two Mrs. Carrolls," under the pen name Martin
Vale.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A9)
1935 Thomas Wolfe wrote his 2nd
novel "Of Time and the River."
(SFEC, 11/17/96, DB p.40)
1935 Mussolini exiled Carlo Levi
(1902-1975), Italian journalist, artist and doctor. As a Jew and for
his antifascist activities he was exiled until 1936 to two isolated
villages in the province of Lucania.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/clevi.htm)
1935 Stefan Zweig (1881-1942),
Austrian novelist, wrote the libretto for the opera Die Schweigsame
Frau (The Silent Woman) with music by Richard Strauss. It was banned by
the Nazis and Zweig was driven into exile.
(Econ, 5/23/09,
p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Zweig)
1936 Jan 18, Author Rudyard
Kipling (70) died in Burwash, England. His work included "Plain Tales
from the Hills," "Barrack-Room Ballads," and the novel "Kim." In 2000
Harry Ricketts au-thored the biography "Rudyard Kipling: A Life." In
2009 Charles Allen authored “Kipling Sahib: India and the Making
of Rudyard Kipling 1865-1900.”
(AP, 1/18/00)(WSJ, 3/30/00, p.A28)(WSJ, 3/14/09,
p.W8)
1936 Mar 28, Mario Vargas Llosa,
Peruvian novelist (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Death in the
Andes), was born.
(HN, 3/28/01)
1936 Mar 29, Judith Guest,
novelist (Ordinary People), was born.
(HN, 3/29/01)
1936 Mar 31, Marge Piercy, poet
and novelist, was born.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1936 Apr 28, Kenneth White, poet
and essayist, was born.
(HN, 4/28/01)
1936 May 28, Fred Chappell, poet
and novelist, was born.
(HN, 5/28/01)
1936 Jun 18, Maxim Gorkei
(Aleksvey Maksimovich Pyeshkov [aka Gorky], b.1868], Russian dramatist,
died. "A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must
have brains."
(WUD, 1994 p.611)(HN, 3/16/98)(AP, 2/23/01)(NG,
7/04, p.132)
1936 Jul 9, June Jordan, poet and
author, was born.
(HN, 7/9/98)
1936 Jul 22, Tom Robbins, novelist
(Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues), was born.
(HN, 7/22/02)
1936 Agatha Christie authored her
novel “Murder in Mesopotamia.” During the 1930s she ac-companied her
husband Max Mallowan, British archeologist, on excavations in southern
Iraq and later wrote an account of their work titled “Come Tell Me How
You Live” (1946).
(MT, summer 2003, p.12)
1936 John Dos Passos authored the
“The Big Money,” the third volume of his “U.S.A.” trilogy.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.W10)
1936 Israel Joshua Singer
(b.1893), Polish-born writer and older brother of Isaac Bashevis
Singer, authored his novel “The Brothers Ashkenazi.” It was later
considered to be the best Russian novel written in Yiddish.
(WSJ, 2/7/09, p.W12)
1936 At its peak the WPA
Federal Writers' Project employed nearly 6,700 people. In 1972 Jerre
Mangione authored “The Dream and the Deal,” an account of the project.
In 2009 David A. Taylor authored “Soul of a People: The WPA Federal
Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America.”
(WSJ, 2/17/09, p.A13)
1937 Mar 15, H.P. Lovecraft
(b.1890), author of horror tales whose works included "The Color out of
Space," died in Providence, RI.
(HN, 8/20/98)(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.B1)
1937 Apr 13, Lanford Wilson, US
playwright (Hot L Baltimore), was born.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1937 May 8, Thomas Pynchon,
novelist (Gravity's Rainbow), was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1937 May 10, Arthur Kopit,
American playwright, was born.
(HN, 5/10/02)
1937 May 13, Roger [Joseph]
Zelazny, sci-fi author (6 Hugos, Chronicles of Amber), was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1937 Jun 19, James M. Barrie
(b.1860), Scottish writer (Dear Brutus, Peter Pan), died. In 2004 the
film "Finding Neverland," was based on Barrie’s life.
(www.angus.gov.uk)(AP, 9/5/04)
1937 Jul 3, Tom Stoppard, British
author and dramatist, was born in Czechoslovakia. His plays include
"Rosencrantz and Gilderstern are Dead" and "The Real Thing."
(HN, 7/3/99)(MC, 7/3/02)
1937 Jul 18, Hunter S. Thompson
(d.2005), journalist, was born in Louisville, Ky.
(SFC, 2/21/05, p.A8)
1937 Aug 11, Edith Wharton
(b.1862), American author, died in France. Her books included “The
House of Mirth” (1905) and “Ethan Frome” (1911). In 1975 R.W.B. Lewis
(d. 2002) au-thored the Pulitzer prize-winning "Edith Wharton: A
Biography." In 2007 Hermione Lee authored “Edith Wharton.”
(SFC, 6/17/02, p.B5)(Econ, 1/27/07,
p.85)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wharton.htm)
1937 Leo Rosten (1908-1997) wrote
"The Education of HYMAN KAPLAN" under the pseudo-nym Leonard Q. Ross.
There were two sequels, one in 1959 and one in 1976. The original was
turned into a Broadway production in 1968.
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)
1937 M.F.K. Fisher wrote "Serve It
Forth," her first book on cooking. Her letters were pub-lished in 1997:
"M.F.K. Fisher: A Life in Letters."
(SFEC,12/21/97, BR p.4)
1937 C.S. Forester wrote "Captain
Horatio Hornblower." Hornblower was loosely based on the life of Adm.
Lord Nelson. Forester wrote 11 Hornblower books and also wrote "The
African Queen." Hornblower was made into a 4-part A&E TV miniseries
in 1999. The early Hornblower novels included "Beat to Quarters," "Ship
of the Line," and "Flying Colours."
(WSJ, 7/10/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 4/5/99, p.A20)
1937 Theodore Geisel (aka Dr.
Seuss) published his book: "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry
Street."
(Hem., 2/97, p.13)
1937 Zora Neale Hurston
(1903-1960) wrote her novel: "Their Eyes were Watching God." It is
about a young black woman from Florida who survives a bad marriage and
finds true love with a younger man named Tea Cake. Cassette recordings
were made in 1991. She also wrote her collected folktales "Mules and
Men." She made some films during research trips on life in the South in
1928 and 1929.
(SFC, 4/5/96, p.D-1)(SFC, 12/13/96, p.C8)
1937 Somerset Maughan authored his
novel “Theater.” In 2004 it was adopted as the comedy film “Being
Julia.”
(WSJ, 10/15/04, p.W1)
1937 George Orwell (1903-1950)
authored "The Road to Wigan Pier." The first half of this work
documents his sociological investigations of Lancashire and Yorkshire
in the industrial north of England before World War II. The second half
is a long essay of his upbringing, and the development of his political
conscience. It marked his 1st disagreement with mainstream Socialists.
(SFEC, 10/1/00, BR
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier)
1937 "The Yearling" by Marjorie
Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953) was published. It was illus-trated by
Edward Shenton.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1937 Jerome Weidman (24) published
"I Can Get It for You Wholesale." It was transformed into a musical in
1962. He wrote 22 novels, and many short stories and screenplays before
he died in 1998.
(SFC, 10/8/98, p.C4)
1938 Mar 12, John Ross, poet,
historian and author, was born. He celebrated his 60th birth-day in SF
with friends at the Cafe Babar with much gusto and brouhaha.
(EW)
1938 Apr 30, Larry [Van Cott]
Niven, US sci-fi author (5 Hugo, Neutron Star), was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1938 May 2, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Thornton Wilder (Our Town).
(MC, 5/2/02)
1938 May 6, Dutch writer Maurits
Dekker was sentenced to 50 days for "offending a friendly head of
state" (Hitler).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1938 Jun 25, Mary Hallock Foote
(b1847), author and illustrator, died. Her 3 Leadville novels
established her as a Western writer. On 2003 Darlis A. Miller authored
“Mary Hallock Foote: Au-thor-Illustrator of the American West.
(AH, 6/03,
p.62)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hallock_Foote)
1938 Jul 18, Vladimir M. Kirshon
(35), Russian playwright, was executed.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1938 Jul 21, Owen Wister (b.1860),
novelist, died at his summer home in Rhode Island. His 1902 novel
"The Virginian" inspired 5 films. He had earlier begun a novel set in
his native Phila-delphia but stopped work on it when his wife died
during childbirth on Aug 24, 1913.
(HN, 7/14/01)(SFC, 1/9/02, p.D8)(AH, 10/02, p.20)
1938 Jul 28, Robert Hughes
[Studley Forrest], writer, critic, was born in Australia.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1938 Aug 25, Frederick Forsyth,
author of thrillers, was born. His work included "The Day of the
Jackal" (1971) and "The Odessa File."
(HN, 8/25/00)
1938 Sep 15, Thomas Wolfe
(b.1900), US writer (Look Homeward Angel), died in Baltimore.
(http://www.britannica.com)
1938 Daphne Du Maurier
(1907-1989), English writer, authored her novel “Rebecca.”
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W4)
1938 Julien Gracq (1910-2007),
French writer, published "Au chateau d'Argol" (The Castle of Argol). It
was favorably reviewed by the Surrealist leader Andre Breton, who
became a friend and a strong influence.
(AP, 12/23/07)
1939 Apr 11, SS Van Dine (50),
[William Huntingdon Wright], detective writer, died.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1939 Apr 12, Alan Ayckbourn,
playwright, was born in London.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1939 Apr 13, Seamus Heaney, Irish
poet, Nobel laureate, was born.
(HN, 4/13/01)
1939 Apr 14, The John Steinbeck
novel "The Grapes of Wrath" was first published.
(SFEC, 11/3/96, DB p.71)(AP, 4/14/97)
1939 May 4, Amos Oz, Israeli
novelist (The Black Box, The Third State), was born.
(HN, 5/4/01)
1939 May 27, Joseph Roth,
Austrian-born Jewish writer, died in Paris. His books included
“Radetzkymarsch” (The Radetzky March) (1932), a novel of the Habsburg
empire from 1859-1916 and “The Auto-da-Fe of the Mind.”
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jroth.htm)
1939 May 29, Nanette Newman,
writer, actress (Endless Game, Of Human Bondage), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1939 Jul 23, Nicholas Gage,
journalist and author (Eleni), was born.
(HN, 7/23/02)
1939 Aug 23, Zane Grey (b.1872),
American novelist, died. He best known for his popular ad-venture
novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old
West. He au-thored over 90 books, some published posthumously and/or
based on serials originally pub-lished in magazines. Grey was one of
the first millionaire authors.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zane_Grey)
1939 Raymond Chandler introduced
detective Philip Marlowe in the mystery novel "The Big Sleep."
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.D5)(WSJ, 8/26/06, p.P14)
1939 Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976), US
writer, authored “Johnny Got His Gun.”
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAtrumbo.htm)
1939 Nathanael West (1902-1940)
wrote his last novel "The Day of the Locust." It was made into a film
in 1975.
(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A12)(SFEC,12/21/97, DB p.58)
1939-1971 California maintained a Senate Fact-Finding
Subcommittee on Un-American Activities. Files on some 20,000
Californians were declared still closed to the public in 1998.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.A20)
1940 Mar 10, David Rabe,
playwright (Sticks and Bones, Hurlyburly), was born.
(HN, 3/10/01)
1940 Mar 10, Mikhail Bulgakov
(b.1891), Russian author, died in Moscow. His novel “The Master
and Margarita,” which satirized life under Stalin, was written between
1928 and the au-thor’s death. It was not published until 1966-67 in the
Russian journal Moskva, with some 60 pages cut.
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.86)(WSJ, 1/3/09, p.W6)
1940 Apr 15, Jeffrey Archer,
English novelist and politician (Kane and Abel, Honor Among Thieves),
was born.
(HN, 4/15/01)
1940 May 1, Bobbie Ann Mason,
American writer (Shiloh and Other Stories, In Country), was born.
(HN, 5/1/01)
1940 May 6, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1940 May 8, Peter Benchley,
novelist (Jaws, The Deep), was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1940 May 24, Joseph Brodsky,
author (Less than 1, Nobel 1987), was born in the USSR.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1940 May 28, Maeve Binchy, Irish
writer (Circle of Friends, The Copper Beach), was born.
(HN, 5/28/01)
1940 Jun 16, Dubose Heyward, US
writer (Porgy, Star Spangled Virgin), died.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1940 Jul 23, John Nichols,
novelist and essayist (The Milagro Beanfield War), was born.
(HN, 7/23/02)
1940 Jul 27, Bharati Mukherjee,
Indian novelist (The Middleman and Other Stories), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1940 Oct 21, Ernest Hemingway's
novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was published.
(HN, 10/21/00)
1940 Dec 21, F. Scott Fitzgerald
(44), American author (Zelda, The Great Gatsby), died of a heart attack.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald)
1940 Denis de Rougemont
(1906-1985), Swiss writer who wrote in French, authored “Love in the
Western World,” a sweeping history of 8 centuries of romantic passion.
(WSJ, 1/5/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_de_Rougemont)
1940 Rebecca West authored “Black
Lamb and Grey Falcon,” an account of her travels in Yugoslavia
beginning in 1936.
(West, BLGC, single volume 1943 ed.)
1941 Jan 13, James Joyce,
Irish-born novelist, died in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1983 Richard
Ellmann authored the 900-page "James Joyce" biography. In 1999 Edna
O'Brien authored the pocket bio "James Joyce."
(AP, 1/13/98)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.B1)
1941 Mar 28, Novelist and critic
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), born as Virginia Stephen, died in Lewes,
England. She feared a mental breakdown and threw herself into the River
Ouse near her home in Sussex. Her body was never found. She was an
English novelist, essayist and critic and wrote standing up. In 1997
"Art and Affection, A Life of Virginia Woolf" was published. In 1997 a
biography by Hermione Lee was published.
(WUD, 1994, p.1643)(SFC, 6/23/96, zone 1 p.2)(SFEM,
1/12/97, BR p.7)(AP, 3/28/97)(SFEC, 6/22/97, BR p.8)(HN, 3/28/01)
1941 Apr 8, Eugene-Marcel Prevost,
novelist, died.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1941 Apr 10, Paul Theroux, author
(The Great Railway Bazaar), was born.
(HN, 4/10/01)
1941 Apr 11, Ellen Goodman,
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, was born.
(HN, 4/11/01)
1941 May 5, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Robert E Sherwood (There shall be no night).
(MC, 5/5/02)
1941 Jul 16, Dag Solstad,
Norwegian novelist and playwright, was born.
(HN, 7/16/01)
1941 Sep 10, Stephen Jay Gould
(d.2002), biologist, paleontologist and writer, was born in NYC. His
books included “Time’s Cycle” and “The Panda’s Thumb.”
(HN, 9/10/00)(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A6)
1941 Jorge Amado (1912-2001),
Brazilian Communist novelist, was exiled to Argentina.
(SFC, 8/9/01, p.D2)
1941 Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian
poet, was born in a village that later became part of Is-rael. His
later work included the poem "State of Siege." In 2003 "Unfortunately
It Was Para-dise," a translation of his work into English, was published
(SSFC, 11/3/02, p.D6)
1941 James Hilton authored “Random
Harvest.” It was turned into a 1942 film starring Ronald Colman and
Greer Garson and directed by Mervyn LeRoy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_LeRoy)
1941 Arthur Koestler (1905-1983),
Hungarian novelist and essayist, authored “Darkness at Noon,” a story
of life in Stalin’s Russia.
(HN, 9/5/98)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 8/26/06,
p.P8)
1941 Janet Lewis (1899-1998)
published "The Wife of Martin Guerre," a historical novel on about 16th
century France. The story was turned into an opera in 1961 with music
by William Bergsma. In 1984 a French film version was released "The
Return of Martin Guere." An Ameri-can version, "Somersby," was made in
1993 set during the Civil War.
(SFC, 12/5/98,
p.C2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Guerre)
1941 H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
published the 2nd volume of his “Days” trilogy, “Newspaper Days.” The
first volume was “Happy Days” and the 3rd was “Heathen Days.”
(WSJ, 9/29/07, p.W8)
1941 British writer Rebecca West,
pen name for Cicely Isabel Fairfield (1892-1983), authored “Black Lamb
and Grey Falcon,” on the history and culture of Yugoslavia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_West)
1942 Feb 23, Stefan Zweig
(b.1881), Austrian Jewish writer (Die Welt von Gestern), commit-ted
suicide with his wife in Brazil. Zweig's nostalgic but rather
impersonal memoirs of the "Golden Age of Security", The World of
Yesterday, was published posthumously in 1943. His last novel (The
Ecstasy of Transformation) was published posthumously in Germany in
1982. In 2008 it was translated into English as “The Post-Office Girl.”
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/szweig.htm)(WSJ, 6/21/08,
p.W9)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.91)
1942 Mar 26, Erica Jong [Mann],
poet, novelist (Fear of Flying, How to Save Your Own Life), was born in
NYC.
(HN, 3/26/01)(SS, 3/26/02)
1942 May 6, Ariel Dorfman, Chilean
writer (Death and the Maiden), was born.
(HN, 5/6/01)
1942 Aug 7, Garrison Keillor,
American humorist and writer, was born.
(HN, 8/7/00)
1942 Aug, Irene Nemirovsky (39),
French-Jewish author, died at Auschwitz. She had recently authored
"Suite Francaise" while waiting in rural France for what she knew was
her imminent arrest and deportation. It is a powerful account of the
effect on ordinary people of the military collapse of June 1940, the
panicked flight from Paris and the arrival of the German army. In 2004
Nemirovsky was awarded a top French literary award. In 2006 Jonathan
Weiss authored “Irene Nemirovsky: Her Life and Works.”
(AFP, 11/8/04)(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.M1)
1942 Nov 19, Bruno Schulz
(b.1892), Polish writer and graphic artist, was shot dead by a German
officer, a rival of Schulz’s German protector. In 1992 Theatre de
Complicite created their play “The Street of Crocodiles” based on the
life and work of Schulz.
(Econ, 9/1/07,
p.76)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Schulz)
1942 Albert Camus (1913-1960),
Algeria-born French writer, authored "The Stranger" and "The Myth of
Sisyphus." He established himself as a spokesman for a philosophy of
the absurd along with Jean-Paul Sartre.
(WSJ, 12/12/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 10/21/06, p.P14)
1942 Alfred Kazin (1915-1998)
authored “On Native Grounds,” a history of the rise of literary realism
in America.
(WSJ, 1/12/08,
p.W9)(www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=784)
1942 Lev Nussimbaum (37),
Orientalist and writer (aka Essad Bey or Kurban Said), died in Italy,
while researching a biography of Mussolini. In 2005 Tom Reiss authored
“The Orientalist,” a biography of Nussimbaum, whose books included the
novel “Ali and Nino” (1937), translated to English in 1970.
(WSJ, 2/17/05, p.D8)(SSFC, 3/6/05, p.B3)
1942 Robert St. John (1902-2003),
American war journalist, authored "From the Land of Si-lent People," an
account of his war experiences in the Balkans.
(SFC, 2/10/03, p.B5)
1943 Apr 22, Louise Gluck,
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born.
(HN, 4/22/01)
1943 Apr 30, Beatrice Potter Webb
(b.1858), British socialist, reformer and writer, died. Her books
included “My Apprenticeship” (1943).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Webb)
1943 May 7, Peter Carey,
Australian writer (Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda), was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1943 May 23, Thomas Mann began
writing his novel Dr. Faustus.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1943 Jul 21, Tess Gallagher,
American writer, was born.
(HN, 7/21/02)
1943 Sep 12, Michael Ondaatje,
Canadian novelist and poet, was born. His work included "The English
Patient."
(HN, 9/12/00)
1943 Oct 7, Radclyffe Hall
(b.1880), English author of the lesbian classic "The Well of
Loneli-ness" (1928), died. The book was the subject of an obscenity
trial in Britain which resulted in all copies being ordered destroyed.
(AP,
9/29/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall)
1943 Dec 22, Beatrix Potter
(b.1866), English author, died. She first told the story of Peter
Rabbit in the form of a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of
Potter's former governess in 1893. A 2nd illustrated letter the same
month later became “The Tale of Jeremy Fisher.” The “Tale of Peter
Rabbit” was published in 1901. At her death she bequeathed all her
holdings, 14 farms and 4,000 acres of land, to the National Trust.
(Econ, 1/6/07,
p.67)(www.visitcumbria.com/bpotter.htm)
1944 Jan 6, Ida M. Tarbell
(b.1857), teacher, author and muckraking journalist, died in
Con-necticut. She is best-known for her 1904 book “The History of the
Standard Oil Company.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell)
1944 May 14, George Lucas, writer
and director, was born in Modesto, Ca. He is best re-membered for his
Star Wars trilogy.
(HN, 5/14/99)(MC, 5/14/02)
1944 May 16, Max Brand, [Frederick
Schiller Faust], western author, died.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1944 Jul 15, In Amsterdam Anne
Frank (1929-1945) entered this in her diary: "In spite of eve-rything I
still believe that people are really good at heart." In 1998 5
additional pages to her di-ary were reported. She died of typhoid in
the spring of 1945 at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp.
(AP, 8/4/98)(SFC, 8/19/98, p.A16)
1944 Jul 23, Lisa Alther, novelist
(Kinflicks), was born.
(HN, 7/23/02)
1944 Jul 31, Antoine de
Saint-Exupery (44), author of "The Little Prince," died in a plane
crash during reconnaissance off Marseilles. In 1949 Nelly de Vogue, his
longtime mistress, au-thored the 1st Exupery biography. In 2001 a
memoir by his widow, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery (d.1979) titled "The
Tale of the Rose: The Passion That Inspired the Little Prince," was
pub-lished. Saint-Exupery's plane was found in 2004.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)(SFEC, 5/28/00, p.A15)(SSFC,
8/5/01, DB p.63)(SFC, 4/8/04, p.A2)
1944 Theodore Adorno and Max
Horkheimer authored “Dialectic of Enlightenment,” which ex-amined the
culture that gave birth to Auschwitz. This became the founding text of
the post mod-ern writers (pomos), later represented by Jean-Francois
Lyotard, Roland Barthes, Michel Fou-cault and Jacques Derrida.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.106)
1945 Apr 27, August Wilson, US
playwright (Fences, Pulitzer 1987), was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1945 Apr 30, Annie Dillard, writer
(Pilgrim at Tinker Creek), was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1945 May 5, Ezra Pound, poet and
author, was arrested by American Army soldiers in Italy for treason. He
had served during the war as a pro-fascist and anti-Semitic spokesman
for the Mussolini government.
(NPR, 5/5/95 interview with the sergeant who
arrested Mr. Pound.)
1945 May 7, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to John Hersey (Bell for Adano).
(MC, 5/7/02)
1945 Jul 9, Dean R[ay] Koontz, US
author (Star Quest, Beastchild), was born.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1945 Aug 26, Franz Werfel (54),
Czech-German-US poet, writer (Mirror Man), died.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1945 Aug, George Orwell published
"Animal Farm" in England.
(SFEC, 10/1/00, BR p.5)
1945 Oct 8, Felix Salten (b.1869),
Austrian writer and the creator of Disney’s Bambi (1923), died in
Switzerland. In 1906 he authored the novel Josephine Mutzenbacher, the
fictional auto-biography of a Vienna prostitute, a notorious
pornographic novel.
{Austria, Writer, Switzerland}
(Econ, 11/8/08,
p.102)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Salten)
1945 Chester Himes authored "If He
Hollers Let Him Go," an exploration of work-place ra-cism.
(SFC, 5/9/03, p.E7)
1945 Carmen Laforet (23), Spanish
writer, authored her first novel “Nada” (Nothing). It was set in Spain
during the 1930s and conveyed the crushing weight of war through its
characters. An English translation became available in 2007.
(SFC, 3/2/07, p.E7)
1945 Carlo Levi (1902-1975),
Italian journalist, artist and doctor, authored “Christ Stopped at
Eboli,” his first documentary novel.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/clevi.htm)
1945 Karl Popper (1902-1994)
authored “The Open Society and Its Enemies.” “Unlimited tol-erance must
led to the disappearance of tolerance.”
(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.P8)
1945 Nevil Shute authored “Most
Secret,” a novel about a French-crewed trawler that uses a flame
thrower against a German gunboat during WW II.
(SFC, 10/28/06, p.P12)
1945 George R. Stewart, novelist
and co-founder of the American name Society authored "Names on the
Land," a work of onomastics and patriotic toponymy.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.W9)
1946 May 6, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Arthur M. Schlesinger ("Age of Jackson").
(MC, 5/6/02)
1946 May 25, Janet E[llen] Morris,
US sci-fi author (Golden Sword, Tempus), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1946 Jul 4, Ron Kovic, disabled
Vietnam veteran, author (Born on 4th of July), was born.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1946 Jul 27, Gertrude Stein (72),
US-French author, poet (Ida, Tender Buttons), died in France. Her work
included the murder mystery "Blood on the Dining-Room Floor" and “The
Bi-ography of Alice B. Toklas” (1933). She once said of Oakland, Ca.:
"There is no there there." Painter Francis Rose carved the headstone on
her grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery. A bi-ography of Stein by Linda
Wagner-Martin was published in 1996 titled "Favored Strangers." In 2007
Janet Malcolm authored “Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice.”
(SFC, 6/9/96, Z1 p.5)(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A24)(WSJ,
9/25/07, p.D6)
1946 Aug 13, H.G. Wells (b.1866),
sci-fi author (Time Machine), died in London.
(AP, 8/13/00)
1946 Hermann Hesse (1877-1962),
Swiss-born German philosopher poet and author, was awarded the Nobel
Prize in literature "for his inspired writings which, growing in
boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals
and high qualities of style."
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1946/)
1946 Curzio Malaparte, an Italian
fascist intellectual, authored “Kaputt,” an autobiographical novel that
described the cruelty of Nazi fanaticism.
(WSJ, 1/19/08, p.W8)
1946 George Mikes (1912-1987), a
Hungarian living in England, published “How to Be An Alien.” It was
about a foreigner’s view of England.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.110)
1946 Robert Penn Warren
(1905-1989) published his Pulitzer Prize winning novel "All the King’s
Men." It was based on the life of Huey Long of Louisiana. In 1949 it
was turned into a movie. In 1997 Joseph Blotner wrote Warren’s
biography.
(WSJ, 8/26/06, p.P8)(WSJ, 9/23/06, p.P12)
1947 Mar 9, Keri Hulme, New
Zealand novelist (The Bone People), was born.
(HN, 3/9/01)
1947 May 5, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Robert Penn Warren (All the King's Men).
(MC, 5/5/02)
1947 May 23, Jane Kenyon, poet
(Let Evening Come, Otherwise), was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1947 Aug 14, Daniele Steel, author
(Remembrance, Zoya, Star, Daddy), was born in NYC.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1947 Sep 8, Ann Beattie, writer,
was born. Her work included “Chilly Scenes of Winter” and “Picturing
Will.”
(HN, 9/8/00)
1947 Sep 21, Stephen King, author,
was born in Portland, Maine. He is best known for super-natural and
horror tales including Carrie (1974), Shining (1977) and Kujo (1981).
(HN, 9/21/00)(SSFC, 7/2/06, Par p.16)
1947 Dec 15, Arthur Machen
(b.1863), Welsh author of classic horror stories, died.
(WSJ, 10/30/07,
p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen)
1947 Willa Cather, American
writer, died. She grew up in Nebraska and spent time in NYC as an
editor. She wrote over 15 books including: "O, Pioneers!" "My Antonia"
(1918) and "The Song of the Lark." In 2000 Joan Acocella authored
"Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism.’
(WUD, 1994, p.233)(RBI, 1989)(SFEC, 4/2/00, BR p.4)
1948 Mar 5, Leslie Marmon Silko,
writer (Ceremony), was born.
(HN, 3/5/01)
1948 Jun 4, Hugh Kenner (d.2003 at
80) met for the 1st time with Ezra Pound in a Washing-ton-area mental
facility. Pound became his mentor and directed him in a number of
literary ef-forts. In 1951 Kenner turned his thesis into the book: "The
Poetry of Ezra Pound." In 1971 Kenner authored "The Pound Era."
(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.A31)
1948 Govindas Vishnoodas Desani
(1909-2000), Kenya-born Pakistani writer in England, au-thored “All
About Hatterr,” his novel of an absurdist and mystical odyssey in
India. In 1968 he was invited to teach at the Univ. of Texas and spent
11 years there.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.M1)
1948 John R. Tunis authored
“Highpockets,” a novel centered around baseball.
(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P10)
1949 Apr 12, Scott Turow, writer
and attorney, was born.
(HN, 4/12/01)
1949 May 2, Arthur Miller won
Pulitzer Prize for "Death of a Salesman."
(MC, 5/2/02)
1949 May 4, Graham Swift, British
novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World), was born.
(HN, 5/4/01)
1949 May 6, P.M.B. Maurice
Maeterlinck (b.1862), Belgian philosopher, playwright (Grand Fairie)
and essayist, died in Nice, France. He won the 1911 Nobel Prize in
Literature.
(WUD, 1994,
p.861)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Maeterlinck)
1949 Aug 16, Margaret Mitchell
(48), US writer (Gone With the Wind), died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1949 Aug 25, Martin Amis, English
novelist, was born. His work included "Money, Time’s Ar-row."
(HN, 8/25/00)
1949 Dorothy Bussy (d.1960),
English novelist and translator, wrote her novella “Olivia.“ Writer
Lytton Strachey and translator of Freud, James Strachey, were her
brothers.
(WSJ, 7/8/06,
p.P8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Bussy)
1949 John Gunther, journalist and
novelist, authored “Death Be Not Proud,” an account of his 17-year-old
son’s battle with a brain tumor that ultimately took his life.
(WSJ, 1/26/08, p.W8)
1949 George Orwell’s (1903-1950)
novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was published. He was in-spired by the
Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin, who wrote an antiutopian novel warning
against intoxication with technology. Orwell asserted that technology
is an instrument of tyr-anny. In his novel Orwell described a machine
called a versificator that generated music for the masses. “Those in
power control the future by controlling the past.”
(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(Econ,
6/10/06, Survey p.6)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.70)
1949 George R. Stewart authored
"Earth Abides," a novel that imagined the SF Bay Area af-ter humans are
driven away by plagues.
(SSFC, 10/27/02, p.M1)
1950 Jan 21, George Orwell (46),
author, died in London of tuberculosis. His books included Down and Out
in Paris and London" (1933) and "1984." William Abrahams (d.1998),
editor and novelist, co-authored the 2-volume biography of Orwell:
"Life, Death and Art in the Second World War," and "Journey to the
Frontier" with Peter Stansky. In 2000 Jeffrey Meyers authored the
biography "Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation." Orwell married
Sonia Brownell (1918-1980) on his deathbed. In 2003 Hilary Spurling
authored "The Gril from the Fiction De-partment," a biography of Sonia
Orwell. In 2003 D.J. Taylor authored "Orwell : The Life."
(AP, 1/21/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.D7)(SFC, 6/25/98,
p.B12)(SFEC, 10/1/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 5/16/03, p.W10)(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.M2)
1950 Mar 19, Edgar Rice Burroughs
(74), sci-fi author and the creator of Tarzan, died. He wrote 24 Tarzan
novels and 50 other thrillers. In 1999 John Taliaferro authored the
biography "Tarzan Forever."
(SFEC, 5/9/99, Par p.8)(MC, 3/19/02)
1950 May 1, Gwendolyn Brooks
became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for her
book of poetry called "Annie Allen."
(HN, 5/1/99)
1950 May 6, Agnes Smedley,
American journalist and writer, died. She was best known for her
chronicling of the Chinese revolution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States)
1950 Jul 18, Carl Clinton Van
Doren (64), US literary (The Nation), died.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1950 Isaac Asimov published “I,
Robot,” a book of short stories. In the book he wrote the Three Laws of
Robotics, which were designed to prevent robots from harming people.
(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey p.18)
1950 L. Ron Hubbard, founder of
Scientology, authored his sci-fi novel “To the Stars.”
(SSFC, 12/26/04, p.E2)
1950 Milan Kundera (b.1929), later
renowned as a Czech writer, informed on Miroslav Dvo-racek, who had
been recruited in Germany by the Czech emigre intelligence network to
work as a spy against the Communist regime. Dvoracek was later
sentenced to 22 years in prison and eventually served 14, working in
uranium mines. Kundera had joined the Communist Party as a student, but
was later expelled after criticizing its totalitarian nature. This
information was only made public in 2008.
(AP, 10/13/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.98)
1950 Octavio Paz (36), poet and
essayist, published "The Labyrinth of Solitude," his classical study of
the Mexican character.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A17)(Econ, 11/18/06, Survey p.4)
1951 Jan 10, [Harry] Sinclair
Lewis (65), American author of 23 novels and 3 plays (Nobel 1930), died
in Rome of a nervous disorder. In 2002 Richard Lingeman authored
"Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street."
(HNQ, 5/18/98)(WSJ, 1/18/02, p.W8)
1951 Mar 19, Herman Wouk’s war
novel "The Caine Mutiny" was first published.
(AP, 3/19/01)
1951 May 7, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Conrad Richter (The Town).
(MC, 5/7/02)
1951 Jul 10, In San Francisco
Dashiell Hammett, mystery writer, was sentenced to 6 months in prison
for refusing to tell where the Communist party got its bail money.
(SFC, 7/6/01, WBb p.8)
1951 Jul 16, J.D. Salinger's
coming-of-age novel, "The Catcher in the Rye," was first pub-lished.
Holden Caulfield became recognized as the quintessential American
teenager.
(SFC, 1/17/97, p.D7)(AP, 7/16/98)(WSJ, 12/15/07,
p.W10)
1951 Aug 1, Jim Carroll, musician
and writer of "The Basketball Diaries," was born
(HN, 8/1/00)
1951 Aug 24, Oscar Hijeulos,
novelist, was born. His work included "The Mambo Kings play Songs of
Love."
(HN, 8/24/00)
1951 Sep 6, William Burroughs
(1914-1997), American writer, shot and killed his wife Joan Vollmer
(27) in Mexico City. He claimed to be trying to shoot a glass off her
head, a la William Tell, during a day of drinking and drugs but shot
her in the head.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.B6)(Internet)
1951 Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
published his memoir under the title “Conclusive Evi-dence.” In 1996 it
was republished as “Vladimir Nabokov: Novels and Memoirs 1941-1951: The
Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister, Speak, Memory,” in a
3-volume set. The individual chapters had been published from 1936-1951.
(Econ, 9/5/09,
p.62)(www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=8§ion=notes)
1951 John Steinbeck authored "The
Log from the Sea of Cortez" based on a 1940 trip he made there with
marine biologist Doc Ricketts (d.1948). He also wrote most of "East of
Eden" in his Manhattan townhouse and Long Island beach retreat.
(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A21)(SFC, 10/15/03, p.D1)
1952 Feb 19, Knut Hamsun (b.1859),
Norwegian writer, died. He won the Nobel Prize in litera-ture in 1920.
His work included "From the Cultural Life in Modern America" (1889),
"Hunger," "The Growth of the Soil," "Victoria," and "An Overgrown
Path." A film portrait of his life was pro-duced in 1997. In 2009 Ingar
Sletten Kolloen authored “Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissenter.”
(SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.47-49)(Econ, 11/7/09, p.79)
1952 Mar 11, Douglas Adams,
British writer, (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), was born.
(HN, 3/11/01)
1952 May 5, A Pulitzer prize
awarded to Herman Wouk (Caine Mutiny).
(MC, 5/5/02)
1952 May 8, Beth Henley, Pulitzer
Prize-winning playwright (Crimes of the Heart), was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1952 May 29, Louise Cooper, sci-fi
author (Nemesis, Inferno, Infanta, Nocturne), was born in UK.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1952 Jun 7, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish
novelist, was born in Istanbul. In 2003 he won the IM-PACV Dublin
Literary Award for his book "My Name Is Red." In 2004 he authored the
highly ac-claimed “Snow.”
(WSJ, 8/13/03, p.D4)(SFC, 10/20/04, p.E1)
1952 Sep 8, The Ernest Hemingway
novel "The Old Man and the Sea" was published. He-mingway won the
Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1953.
(TL, 1988, p.114)(SFEC, 7/18/99, p.D5) (AP, 9/8/99)
1952 Samuel Beckett published his
play "Waiting for Godot." It was 1st produced in Paris in 1953.
(SFEM, 9/10/00, p.7)
1952 Arthur Laurent wrote his play
"The Time of the Cuckoo."
(WSJ, 2/23/00, p.A20)
1952 Paul Bowles (b.1910)
published his novel: "Let It Come Down."
(SFC, 7/12/99, p.E3)
1952 Whitaker Chambers authored
"Witness," a chronicle of his role in the Alger Hiss case. In it he
declared that the essence of communism lay in its vision of mankind
emancipated from God.
(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.W15)
1952 Barnaby Conrad (30) authored
the bestseller "Matador," about the life of Manolete, Spain's greatest
bullfighter.
(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.E3)
1952 Jacques Cousteau wrote "The
Silent World." It was made into a film that gave Cousteau the first of
3 Academy Awards.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A7)
1952 Philip K. Dick (d.1982) wrote
his short story "Paycheck." It was optioned for a movie in 1999.
(WSJ, 4/27/99, p.A20)
1952 Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)
wrote his classic novel "Invisible Man." It chronicled the har-rowing
travels of a nameless black man in the South and New York’s Harlem.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, BR p.2)(SFC, 12/6/05, p.B5)
1952 Maria Flores wrote "The Woman
With the Whip," a biography of Eva Peron.
(WSJ, 11/14/96, p.A20)
1952 Che Guevara chronicled his
motorcycle trip around South America on a Norton 500. His memoir was
published as "The Motorcycle Diaries."
(SFC, 5/12/96, Z1p.4)
1952 Charles Einstein (1926-2007),
sportswriter and author, wrote “Bloody Spur,” based on the crimes of
William Heirens, the “Lipstick Killer,” who terrorized Chicago in the
mid-1940s. In 1956 Fritz Lang made the book into a film noir set in NYC
called “While the City Sleeps.”
(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.B6)
1952 Prof. Charles M. Hardin
(1908-1997) wrote "The Politics of Agriculture."
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.E2)
1952 Black author Chester Himes
(d.1984) published his book "Cast the First Stone," a som-ber tale of
prison life. He had written it in 1937 under the title "Yesterday Will
Make You Cry."
(SFEC, 3/1/98, BR p.7)(SSFC, 2/25/01, BR p.1)
1952 Eugene Ionesco wrote "The
Chairs." It was a dadaist parable of two fantasists preparing to
deliver an important message.
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A16)
1952 George Racey Jordan, USAF
(Ret.) with Richard L. Stokes authored "Major Jordan’s Diaries." It was
an account of Jordan’s experiences in the US-Russia Lend-Lease program
from 1942. The 2nd reference is a list of the lend-lease items provided
to the Soviet Union beginning in Oct 1941.
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/mjd1.html
www.topedge.com/panels/aircraft/sites/gustin/lendlse.html
1952 Frederick Knott, English
writer, wrote his thriller "Dial ‘M’ for Murder. It was made into a
film with Grace Kelly by Alfred Hitchcock.
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A20)
1952 C.S. Lewis (1898-1963),
Irish-born Anglican writer, authored “Mere Christianity,” an
ex-planation of the basic tenets of Christianity.
(WSJ, 8/15/08, p.W9)
1952 Norman Vincent Peale wrote
"The Power of Positive Thinking."
(SFEC, 12/8/96, Par p.21)
1952 Egor P. Popov (d.2001 at 88),
Ukrainian born Prof. of Civil Engineering, published his classic
"Mechanics of Materials" at UC Berkeley.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.D8)
1952 The first "Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM) was published. It defined
nervous breakdowns as "psychophysiologic nervous system reactions."
(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A1)
1952 Samuel Eilenberg (d.1998 at
84), mathematician and art collector, co-authored "Founda-tions of
Algebraic Topology" with Norman Steenrod of Princeton Univ. The
graduate text "Gen-eral Topology" was written by John Kelley (d.1999 at
82) of UC Berkeley.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A15)(SFC, 12/6/99, p.B2)
1952 The French work "Le Pretre
Jean" (Prester John) was written.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.C5)
1952 British writer Mary Norton
wrote "The Borrowers," illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush. It was
published in 1953 and made into a movie in 1998.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.C3)(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1952 Wolf Mankowitz published his
first novel "Make me an Offer." It was based on his ex-periences in the
porcelain trade.
(SFC, 5/29/98, p.D7)
1952 Terence Rattigan published
his play "The Deep Blue Sea."
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A16)
1952 Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005)
authored “Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos,” a popular study of parasitism.
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.80)
1952 In Germany Mrs. Aicher-Scholl
(e.1998 at 81) published "White Rose," a description of the White Rose
nonviolent student resistance to the Third Reich.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1952 John Steinbeck wrote his
novel "East of Eden."
(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)
1952 Telford Taylor published
"Sword and Swastika." He helped write the rules for Nuremberg Trials.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)
1952 Edmund Wilson authored “The
Shores of Light.” It became recognized as a classic in-troduction to
the 1920s literature of America.
(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.P10)
1952 Herman Wouk wrote his novel
"Cain Mutiny." It became a film in 1954.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.B1)
1953 Mar 19, Tennessee Williams'
"Camino Real," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1953 May 4, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to E. Hemingway (Old Man & The Sea).
(MC, 5/4/02)
1953 Jul 16, Joseph Hilaire Pierre
Belloc (82), author (Path to Rome), died.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1953 Oct 29, Harry Clement Stubbs
(d.2003), science fiction writer, authored "Mission of Gravity." It was
serialized in Astounding Science Fiction magazine.
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.A21)
1953 Eric Ambler wrote his spy
thriller "The Schirmer Inheritance."
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A22)
1953 Poul Anderson (d.2001 at 74),
authored 2 science fiction novels: "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and
"Brain Wave."
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.A24)
1953 Lars Valerian Ahlfors
(1907-1996), mathematician, published his mathematics textbook "Complex
Analysis. "
(SFC, 10/21/96, p.A17)
1953 Michael Avallone (d.1999 at
74) published "The Tall Dolores," the first of 36 novels
fea-turing detective Ed Moon.
(SFC, 3/2/99, p.A20)
1953 James Baldwin published his
autobiographical novel "Go Tell It on the Mountain."
(SFC, 12/30/98, p.A2)
1953 Samuel Beckett translated his
"En Attendant Godot" into English as "Waiting for Godot."
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)
1953 Sybille Bedford (b.1911),
German-born English novelist, published her 1st book, “A Visit to Don
Otavio,” a travelogue of Mexico.
(WSJ, 5/12/05, p.D8)
1953 Saul Bellow authored his
novel "The Adventures of Augie March," in which he defined the
immigrant experience in US literature.
(SFC, 9/15/03, p.D1)
1953 Isaiah Berlin wrote his essay
"The Hedgehog and the Fox." He ruminated on the words of the Greek poet
Archilochus who said: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog
knows one big thing.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.A28)
1953 Simone de Bouvier (Beauvoir)
published a British edition of "America Day by Day," a journal of her
travels in America from 1947. Her trip also began a relationship with
Nelson Al-gren. In 1999 the book "A Transatlantic Love Affair" Letters
to Nelson Algren" was published.
(WSJ, 1/18/98, p.A16)(SFEC, 2/28/99, BR p.4)
1953 Ray Bradbury wrote his novel
"Fahrenheit 451." It was made into a film in 1967 and an-other version
was planned in 1997.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.D3)
1953 "Junkie" the first novel by
William Burroughs was published. In it appeared the character Herbert
who was the poet Herbert Huncke (1915-1996), who introduced Burroughs
to heroin.
(SFC, 8/9/96, p.A19)
1953 Herb Caen, SF newspaper
columnist, wrote his 4th book "Don’t Call It Frisco."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A13)
1953 Raymond Chandler wrote the
detective novel "The Long Goodbye." He appears to have been the first
writer to put into print the phrase "You can’t win them all."
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.B7)
1953 Katherine Esau (1898-1997)
published her classic "Plant Anatomy," a leading text on plant
structure.
(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A22)
1953 British writer Ian Fleming
published his first James Bond book, "Casino Royale."
(WSJ, 4/24/98, p.W1)
1953 Rev Billy Graham published
"Peace With God," the first of his 18 books.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, Z1 p.3)
1953 Heinrich Harrer wrote his
memoir "Seven Years in Tibet."
(SFEC,12/14/97, BR p.4)
1953 Robert Heilbroner (1919-2005)
authored the 1st edition of his economics classic “Worldly
Philosophers.”
(WSJ, 1/11/05, p.A1)
1953 Joseph Heller began writing
"Catch-22." The book was initially titled Catch 18 and con-tracted to
Simon & Schuster in 1957. The agent, Candida Donadio, chose 22, her
birthday was Oct 22, to avoid conflict with Mila 18, a novel by Leon
Uris. Catch 22 was published in 1961. [see Louis Fallstein, 1951, "Face
of a Hero."]
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A2)(SFC, 1/26/01, p.A21)
1953 Jack Kerouac wrote his book
"The Subterraneans." Though set in San Francisco it was actually about
characters from Fugazi’s Bar of Greenwich Village. Anton Rosenberg
(d.1998 at 71), a hipster painter and musician, was portrayed as Julian
Alexander. The book was not pub-lished until 1958.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A21)
1953 Alfred Kinsey published
"Sexual Behavior in the Human Female," the 1st major US sur-vey on
women's sexual habits. He found that attitudes did not match behavior.
(NW, 6/30/03, p.44)
1953 "The Conservative Mind" by
Russel Kirk, Michigan-born writer, was first published by Henry Regnery
(1912-1996), the godfather of modern conservatism. "The book recovers a
leg-acy of conservative ideas and also trumpets a conservative future."
In the book is described an "inclination to cherish the permanent
things in human existence." Kirk believed that "political problems are,
at bottom, religious and moral problems." He lists six canons of
conservatism the first of which is the conviction that "there exists a
transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well
as conscience. The book was re-issued in 1995 in a 40th anniversary ed.
by Regnery Publ.
(WSJ, 9/28/95, p.A-16)(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A15)
1953 Wolf Mankowitz published
"Wedgewood," the definitive handbook on the subject.
(SFC, 5/29/98, p.D7)
1953 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote his novel "The Bridges at Toko-Ri."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1953 Iris Murdoch published
"Sartre: Romantic Rationalist."
(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A20)
1953 Robert Musil (d.1942),
Austrian author, got published in short form in English his unfin-ished
book "The Man Without Qualities" set in Vienna around 1913. A full 2
volume set ($60) was published in 1995.
(WSJ, 4/12/95, A-12)
1953 Alain Robbe-Grillet authored
"Les Gommes" (The Erasers), a novel about a detective investigating an
apparent murder who ends up killing the victim. It was seen in France
as the debut of the "new novel."
(AP, 2/18/08)
1953 Jim Thompson authored the
classic noir thriller “The Killer Inside Me.”
(SSFC, 9/17/06, p.D7)
1953 Leon Uris (d.2003) authored
the novel "Battle Cry."
(AP, 6/24/03)(SFC, 6/25/03, p.A25)
1953 John Werthan authored
"Seduction of the Innocent," which linked comic books to juve-nile
delinquency. This led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority. EC
Comics withdrew "Tales From the crypt" and many other titles.
(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)
1953 Richard Wright (d.1960)
authored the novel: "The Outsider."
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A20)
1953 Thomas Guinzburg, Donald
Hall, Harold Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimp-ton founded the
Paris Review.
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A2)
1953 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
(b.1896), author of “The Yearling,” died. In 2005 Rodger L. Tarr edited
a collection of her letters to her husband, Norton S. Baskin: “The
Private Marjorie.”
(WSJ, 2/25/05, p.W8)
1954 Aug 3, Sidonie Gabrielle
Colette (b.1873), French actress, librettist, novelist (Claudine) and
critic, died. Her novels included "Le Ble en herbe" (The Ripening Seed)
and "Julie de Carneilhan (1941). In 1999 Judith Thurman authored
"Secrets of the Flesh," a biography of Colette.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A24)(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Kingsley Amis authored “Lucky
Jim,” his comic novel of academic life.
(WSJ, 2/16/08, p.W10)
1954 Harriette Arnow authored “The
Dollmaker.” The novel documented the move by Gertie Nevel from
self-sufficient poverty in Kentucky to urban poverty in Detroit. It was
made into a movie in 1984.
(Econ, 12/19/09,
p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dollmaker)
1954 Kenneth Dodson (d.1999 at 91)
published his WW II novel "Away All Boats."
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.C7)
1954 William Golding published his
"Lord of the Flies." It is about a group of schoolboys who get marooned
on an island and quickly degenerate to a state of savagery.
(WSJ, 10/5/95, p.A-12)
1954 Aldous Huxley authored "The
Doors of Perception," a book about hallucinogenic drugs. Jim Morrison
later named his band "The Doors" after this book.
(SSFC, 4/11/04, Par p.2)
1954 Louis L’Amour wrote his
western novel "Lance Kilkenny."
(USAT, 6/10/98, p.1D)
1954 Alan Le May (1899-1964)
authored his novel “The Searchers” (1954). The story was based on Brit
Johnson, a black Texas ranch foreman, who was killed by Kiowa raiders
in 1871.
(AH, 6/07,
p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Searchers_%28film%29)
1954 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote his novel "Sayanora."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1954 Bud Schulberg wrote the
classic "On the Waterfront," a novel of labor and corruption in New
York City.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.E5)
1954 John Steinbeck wrote his
novel "Sweet Thursday."
(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)
1954 Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967)
published her own literary memoir, a book that mixed remi-niscences and
recipes under the title “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_B._Toklas)
1954 Gore Vidal published his
satirical fantasy "Messiah."
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A12)
1955 May 2, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Tennessee Williams for Cat on Hot Tin Roof.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1955 May 16, American author and
critic James Agee died in New York.
(AP, 5/16/01)
1955 Aug 12, Thomas Mann (80),
German writer (Dr. Faustus, Nobel 1929), died. Two biog-raphies of Mann
were published in 1995: Thomas Mann: A Biography by Ronald Hayman and
Thomas Mann: A Life by Donald Prater.
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 12/26/95, p. A-5)(MC,
8/12/02)
1955 Sep 15, Olympia Press in
Paris published Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Lolita.”
(www.evergreenreview.com/100/nabokov2.html)
1955 James Baldwin authored “Notes
of a Native Son.”
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.M4)
1955 Edward Latimer "Ned" Beach
(1918-2002), Navy captain, authored "Run Silent, Run Deep" (1955).
(SFC, 12/2/02, p.A19)
1955 William Gaddis (d.1998 at 75)
published his first novel "The Recognitions."
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.A38)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.M2)
1955 John O’Hara authored “Ten
Frederick North,” a novel about thwarted political ambition.
(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.W10)
1955 Alain Robbe-Grillet authored
won France's Critics Prize with "Le Voyeur" (The Voyeur), about the
world seen through the eyes of a sadistic killer.
(AP, 2/18/08)
1956 Jan 31, British author A.A.
Milne (74), creator of "Winnie-the-Pooh," died. He left the rights to
the honey-loving bear to five beneficiaries that included the Garrick
Club, Westminster School, The Royal Literary Fund, his own family and
illustrator E.H. Shepard.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A20)(AP, 1/31/06)
1956 Apr 8, Poet Gary Snyder
resolved to write his opus Mountains and Rivers Without End.
(SFC, 9/1/96, DB p.31)
1956 May 20, Max Beerbohm,
caricaturist, writer (Yet Again), died.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1956 Aug 14, Bertold Brecht
(b.1898), German dramatist (Mother Courage), died. His first play was
"Baal." He also wrote "The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui," a satire on
Hitler’s rise to power. In 1959 Prof. Martin Esslin (d.2002 at 83)
authored "Brecht: A Choice of Evils."
(WSJ, 10/3/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 8/10/97, DB p.15)(SFC,
2/28/02, p.A20)(MC, 8/14/02)
1956 John Hersey authored his
novel "A Single Pebble," about a trip through the Yangtze River gorges.
(SSFC, 10/27/02, p.M3)
1956 Grace Metalious authored her
risque novel “Peyton Place.”
(SSFC, 1/1/06, p.B6)
1957 Mar 29, Joyce A.L. Cary (68),
English writer (Horse's Mouth), died.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1957 Apr 3, Samuel Beckett's
"Endgame," premiered in London.
(V.D.-H.K.p.369)(MC, 4/3/02)
1957 May 6, Eugene O'Neill's play
"Long Day's Journey into Night" won the Pulitzer Prize for drama; John
F. Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" won the Pulitzer for biography or
autobiogra-phy.
(AP, 5/6/07)
1957 May 29, George Bacovia
[Vasiliu] Romanian poet, composer (Plumb), died at 75.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1957 Jun 27, Malcolm Lowry
(b.1909), English novelist, died in Sussex, England. He is best known
for his novel “Under the Volcano” (1947). In 2007 Michael Hofmann
edited “The Voyage That Never Ends: Malcolm Lowry in His Own Words.”
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mlowry.htm)(SFC, 9/3/07, p.E2)
1957 Jul 23, Giuseppe Tomasi di
Lampedusa (b.1896), Sicilian aristocrat and writer, died. His classic
novel “Il Gattopardo” (The Leopard), was published in 1958. It included
the line: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to
change.” David Gilmour later authored the biography “The Last Leopard”
(1991).
(WSJ, 12/9/06, p.P24)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.61)
1957 Sep 5, Viking Press first
published "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Kerouac typed out the
manuscript in 20 days on a single roll of teletype paper. In 1997 his
book of notes from the early 1950s: "Some of the Dharma" was published.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, BR p.8)(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.A19)(AP,
9/5/07)
1957 Theodore Geisel (aka Dr.
Seuss) wrote "The Cat in the Hat" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.D2)(WSJ, 12/24/98, p.B1)
1957 C.Y. Lee authored his novel
"The Flower Drum Song," a story of San Francisco’s China-town. It
inspired a Rogers and Hammerstein musical and was made into a film in
1961.
(SFC, 9/18/02, p.A1)
1957 Norman Mailer published his
essay "The White Negro" in Dissent.
(WSJ, 2/24/97, p.A20)
1957 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote his novel "The Bridge at Andau," and co-authored "Rascals in
Paradise." He also published his "Selected Writings."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1957 The book “The Sultan in Oman”
by Jan Morris (b.1926), British travel writer, was pub-lished. It was
set in 1955 and described the Sultan’s traveling party after a brief
war.
(www.hku.hk/english/courses2000/2045/morris.htm)
1957 Wright Morris won the
National Book Award for his epic novel "The Field of Vision."
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.D7)
1957 Vladimir Nabokov authored his
novel “Pnin,” the story of a master failer.
(WSJ, 2/16/08, p.W10)
1957 Vance Packard (1914-1996)
wrote "Hidden Persuaders," a critique of advertising and the consumer
society.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B6)
1957 Ayn Rand (1905-1982) wrote
her novel "Atlas Shrugged."
(SFEC, 7/26/98, BR p.3)
1957 Evelyn Waugh authored "The
Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold." "He abhorred plastics, Picasso, sunbathing
and Jazz—everything in fact that had happened in his lifetime."
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A11)
1957 Peter B. Kyne (b.1880),
author, died. He wrote 25 novels and over 1,000 short stories, a number
of which were turned into Hollywood movies. Kyne was born in San
Francisco and grew up in San Mateo County where most of his work was
set.
(Ind, 7/19/03, p.3A)
1958 Mar 8, William Faulkner said
US schools had degenerated to become babysitters.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1958 May 5, A Pulitzer prize
awarded to James Agee for (Death in the Family).
(MC, 5/5/02)
1958 May 29, Juan Ramón
Jimenez (76), Spanish poet (Nobel 1956), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1958 Aug 18, The 1st US edition of
the novel "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov was published by Putnam. The 1st
French edition was in 1955.
(WSJ, 3/20/97,
p.A14)(www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=9§ion=notes)
1958 Sep 5, The novel "Doctor
Zhivago" by Russian author Boris Pasternak was published in the United
States for the first time.
(AP, 9/5/98)
1958 Chinua Achebe of Nigeria
authored the novel "Things Fall Apart." It was about the Igbo tribe's
efforts to guard its way of life against English colonialism and was
made into a theater production in 1997. It sold millions of copies
worldwide and was voted Africa's best book of the century. In 2004
Achebe rejected a Nigerian national honors award, protesting conditions
in the West African nation and saying renegades were trying to turn his
home state into "a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom."
(WSJ, 2/09/99, p.A20)(SFEC, 8/6/00, BR p.4)(P,
10/18/04)
1958 Jorge Amado (d.2001 at 88),
Brazilian writer, published his novel "Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon."
(SFC, 8/9/01,
p.D2)(www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9182926)
1958 Algis Budrys published his
sci-fi novel "Who," in which was described an artificial heart, 5-years
before a working version was developed.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, Z1 p.2)
1958 Carlos Fuentes (b.1928),
Mexican author, published his first novel “Where the Air Is Clear.” It
was set in Mexico City in 1956-1957 when he was a student there on the
G.I. Bill.
(WSJ, 6/14/08, p.W10)
1958 Graham Greene published his
novel “Our Man in Havana.” It captured Cuba on the cusp of sweeping
change.
(WSJ, 8/25/06, p.A1)
1958 Nora Johnson (b.1933)
published her novel “The World of Henry Orient.” It was made into film
in 1964. her father was filmmaker Nunally Johnson.
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.W8)
1958 Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(1918-2008), Russian writer, completed the first draft of "In the First
Circle," a novel, set during Stalin's rule. It was about the effects of
incarceration and forced labor on the minds and souls of innocent and
intelligent men. He immediately put it through two revisions. He wrote
4th draft in 1962. In 1968 it was first published in the West. A
Russian edi-tion came out in 1978. A new edition in 2009 included parts
left out in earlier editions.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574431450891084972.html)
1959 Jan 27, Aldous Huxley (64),
British author of Brave New World (1932), attended a con-ference at the
Univ. of California Medical school and warned that manipulation of
personality by drugs is already here.
(SSFC, 1/25/09, DB p.50)
1959 Mar 26, Raymond Chandler
(71), American writer, best known for his Philip Marlowe de-tective
novels, died. He wrote seven Marlowe books that includes "Farewell My
Lovely," "The Long Goodbye" (1953) and "The Big Sleep" (1939). In 1976
Prof. Frank MacShane wrote "The Life of Raymond Chandler." In 1995 he
was honored with a 2-volume issues of his works by the Library of
America. A CD-ROM was also made titled after a novel: Trouble is My
Business. In 1997 Tom Hiney wrote "Raymond Chandler: A Biography." In
2001 Tom Hiney and Frank Mac-Shane edited "The Raymond Chandler
Papers." In 2007 Judith Freeman authored “The Long Embrace: Raymond
Chandler and the Woman He Loved.”
(WSJ, 10/18/95, A-16)(SFC, 7/9/97, p.D5)(SFC,
3/14/98, p.B7)(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C8)(WSJ, 4/23/01, p.A20)(SS,
3/26/02)(SSFC, 11/4/07, p.M1)
1959 May 4, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Archibald Macleish (again) for his poetic drama, JB based on
the Book of Job.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1959 Jun 2, Allen Ginsberg wrote
his poem "Lysergic Acid," in SF.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1959 Richard Condon (d.1996)
authored his novel "The Manchurian Candidate." It was made into a film
with Frank Sinatra in 1962. In 2003 it was revealed that phrases and
ideas were pla-giarized from "I, Claudius," the 1934 historical novel
by Robert Graves.
(SFC, 10/4/03, p.D1)
1959 Jack Kerouac published
"Doctor Sax" with Grove Press. He had begun the book while visiting
William Burroughs in Mexico City around 1951. In 2003 it was released
on CD based on a 1998 screenplay by Jim Sampas, Kerouac's nephew.
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.M2)
1959 Philip Roth authored his
coming-of-age novella “Goodbye Columbus.” The initial publica-tion
included 5 other short stories.
(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.W10)
1959 Hunter Thompson spent time
working in San Juan as a journalist and based his novel "The Rum
Diary," published in 1998, on the experience. Plans for a film based on
the book de-veloped in 2003.
(SFC, 11/7/03, p.D11)
1960 Jan 4, Albert Camus
(1913-1960), French writer, died in an automobile accident at age 46.
He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1957. His work included the
play “Caligula.” In 1997 Oliver Todd wrote the biography “Albert
Camus.” In 1979 Herbert Lottman also wrote a biogra-phy: “Albert Camus.”
(WUD, 1994, p.214)(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A22)(WSJ,
12/12/97, p.A16)(AP, 1/4/98)
1960 Mar 24, US appeals court
ruled the novel, "Lady Chatterly's Lover" by D.H. Lawrence, to be not
obscene.
(WSJ, 5/15/95, p. A-16)(MC, 3/24/02)
1960 May 2, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Alan Drury (Advice & Consent).
(MC, 5/2/02)
1960 May 30, Boris Pasternak
(b.1890), Russian poet, novelist (Dr Zhivago) and translator, died at
age 70.
(WUD, 1994, p.1055)(MC, 5/30/02)
1960 John Barth authored his novel
“The Sot-Weed Factor.”
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.M4)
1960 Harper Lee (b.1926), American
novelist, authored "To Kill a Mockingbird." It was made into a film in
1962. In 2006 Charles J. Shields authored “Mockingbird: A Portrait of
Harper Lee.”
(HN, 4/28/99)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.M3)
1960 Zora Neale Hurston (b.1903),
black author, died. Her 1942 autobiography was titled "Dust Tracks on a
Road." In 1977 Robert Hemenway authored a biography of Hurston. In 2002
Cora Kaplan edited "Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters." In 2002
Valerie Boyd authored the biography "Wrapped in Rainbows."
(WSJ, 12/20/02, p.W8)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M1)
1960 Yukio Mishima (1925-1970),
Japanese writer, authored “Utage No Ato “After the Ban-quet), a
somewhat disguised account of certain aspects of an actual political
campaign.
(Econ, 8/22/09,
p.35)(www.answers.com/topic/yukio-mishima)
1961 Jan 10, Dashiell
Hammett (66), author, died in NYC from throat cancer. In 1983
Diane Johnson authored his biography. His books included “The Maltese
Falcon” and “The Thin Man,” both of which were turned into films. He
wrote “The Maltese Falcon” while living in San Fran-cisco at 891 Post
St., which was also given as the address of detective Sam Spade.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0358591/)(SFC, 6/7/04, p.C2)
1961 Mar 16, "The Agony and the
Ecstasy" was published by Irving Stone.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1961 May 1, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird."
(MC, 5/1/02)
1961 Jun 2, George S. Kaufman
(72), playwright, director, Pulitzer prize winner, died.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1961 Jul 1, Louis-Ferdinand Celine
(b.1894), French physician, author, anti-Semite, died. His books
included “Journey to the End of Night” (1932).
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lfceline.htm)(WSJ, 9/23/06,
p.P8)
1961 Jul 2, Novelist E. Hemingway
shot himself in the head at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. Boozing and
physical trauma led to depression, electroshock therapy and suicide. In
1964 his novel "A Moveable Feast was published. In
1974 Jose Luis Castillo-Puche published "He-mingway
in Spain." His novel "True at First Light" was based on his 1953 safari
in Africa and was to be published Jul 21 1999, the centennial of his
birth. His book "The Garden of Eden" and "Islands in the Stream" were
also published after his death. His novel "Dangerous Sum-mer" was based
on the rivalry between two matadors, Antonio Ordonez (d.1998) and Luis
Mi-guel Dominguin. In 1976 his son Gregory (d.2001) authored
"Papa: A Personal Memoir."
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A11)(TMC, 1994, p.1961)(AP,
7/2/97)(SFC, 8/5/98, p.E3)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A2)(SFC, 12/21/98,
p.B5)(WSJ, 6/18/99, p.W13)(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A18)
1961 Nov 2, James Thurber
(b.1894), humorist (The Male Animal), died at age 66. In 1975 Burton
Bernstein authored "Thurber: A Biography." In 2003 Harrison Kinney and
Rosemary A. Thurber edited "The Thurber Letters."
(MC, 11/2/01)(WSJ, 8/1/03, p.W10)
1961 Dec 12, Frantz Fanon
(b.1925), Martinique-born writer, psychiatrist, and revolutionary died
in Washington, DC. He foretold of Third World liberation struggles. In
2008 John Edgar Wideman authored his novel “Fanon” based on Fanon’s
life.
(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.M2)(WSJ, 2/15/08,
p.W2)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fanon.htm)
1961 Ivo Andric of Yugoslavia won
the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)
1961 Irene Kampen (d.1998 at 75)
wrote her first of ten books on her life following a divorce: "Life
Without George." The books became the basis for the TV sitcom: "The
Lucy Show" (1962-1974), which followed Lucille Ball’s divorce with Desi
Arnaz.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A22)
1961 William Saroyan published his
autobiography: "Here Comes There Goes You Know Who."
(SFEM, 4/27/97, p.11)
1961 "Academic Women" by Prof.
Jessie Bernard (1903-1996) was published. She soon re-tired but
continued writing. Her works included "The Sex Game," "The Female
World," "The Fu-ture of Marriage," and "The Future of Motherhood."
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A21)
1961 Stanislaw Lem wrote "Memoirs
Found in a Bathtub." He pondered the growing vulner-ability of
civilization to a disruption of its information flow.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A23)
1961 Benjamin Quarles (1904-1996),
historian, published "The Negro in the American Revo-lution."
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.B2)
1961 J.D. Salinger published
"Franny and Zooey."
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A2)
1961 D.W. Sciama published his
book "The Unity of the Universe."
(TNG, Klein, p.154)
1961 Joseph Weber, prof. of
physics at Univ. of Maryland, published his "Gravitational Rela-tivity
and Gravitational Waves."
(TNG, Klein, p.130)
1961 Gerald J. Whitrow (d.2000 at
87), mathematician and philosopher, published "The Na-ture of Time."
(SFC, 6/27/00, p.A23)
1961 "The Soft Machine" by William
Burroughs was published.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.B6)
1961 The children’s classic "James
and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl was published.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, Par p.9)
1961 Joseph Heller published
"Catch-22."
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A2)
1961 Richard Hughes authored his
historical novel "The Fox in the Attic," based on Hitler’s failed 1923
putsch.
(NW, 8/20/01, p.56)
1961 Robert A. Heinlein
(1906-1988) authored his sci-fi masterpiece “Stranger in a Strange
Land.” It was about a human child raised on Mars by Martians and
brought to Earth.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.D7)
1961 Jane Jacobs authored "The
Death and Life of Great American Cities." It was based on her
experiences in Greenwich Village.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.4)(WSJ, 10/11/00, p.24)
1961 "The Phantom Tollbooth" by
Norton Juster was published. It was illustrated by Jules Feiffer.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1961 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote "Report of the County Chairman."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1961 Walker Percy authored his
novel "The Moviegoer."
(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.M3)
1961 Harold Robbins (d.1997) wrote
his novel "Carpetbaggers," based on the life of Howard Hughes.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C4)
1961 J.D. Salinger published
"Franny and Zooey."
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.E2)
1961 Muriel Spark published her
novel "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie."
(WSJ, 4/11/97, p.A12)
1961 John Updike wrote "Rabbit
Run."
(SFEC, 9/28/97, BR p.3)
1961 Kurt Vonnegut wrote his novel
"Mother Night."
(SFC, 11/15/96, p.C3)
1962 Mar 20, C. Wright Mills (45),
US sociologist (Power Elite), died.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1962 May 7, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Theodore H. White (Making of President).
(MC, 5/7/02)
1962 May 12, Dick Calkins,
co-author of Buck Rogers, died at 67.
(SC, Internet, 5/12/97)
1962 Jul
6, William Cuthbert Faulkner (b.1897), US writer (Nobel 1949), died in
Oxford, Miss. In 2004 Jay Parini authored “One Matchless Time: A Life
of William Faulkner.”
(WSJ, 10/28/04,
p.A1)(www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/faulkner_william/)
1962 Oct 1, Ludwig Bemelmans
(1898), Austrian-born writer of children’s books, died in NYC. His 1st
Madeline book was published in 1939.
(www.kidsreads.com/series/series-madeline-author.asp)
1962 Helen Gurley Brown (b.1922)
authored "Sex and the Single Girl." In 2009 Jennifer Scan-lon authored
“Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown.”
(NW, 6/23/03, p.65)(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.W7)
1962 Ken Kesey (1935-2001)
published his novel: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest."
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A46)(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A1)
1962 Walker Percy (1916-1990),
physician, novelist (Lancelot), won the National Book Award for his
book "The Moviegoer."
(WSJ, 3/26/03, p.D8)
1962 Alexander Solzhenitsyn (43)
published "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch." It first appeared
in the Soviet magazine Novy Mir. In 1998 D.M. Thomas published the
biography: Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life." In 1985
Michael Scammell published his biog-raphy: "Solzhenitsyn."
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.9)
1962 Dido Sotiriou authored
“Farewell Anatolia,” a novel of 2 shepherd boys, one Christian and one
Muslim, who go off to fight on opposite sides during the Greek-Turkish
war of 1919-22.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.79)
1963 Nov 22, Aldous L. Huxley
(69), English author (Devils of Loudon, Brave New World), died in Los
Angeles.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ahuxley.htm)
1963 Nov 22, C.S. Lewis, English
author the Narnia series and other books, died of osteopo-rosis. In
2005 Alan Jacobs authored “The Narnian,” a biography of Lewis.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cslewis.htm)(WSJ, 10/15/05,
p.P13)
1963 May 6, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Barbara Tuchman (Guns of August).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1963 Jun 17, John Cowper Powys
(b.1872), English author, died. In 2007 Morine Krissdottir authored
“Descent of Memory: The Life of John Cowper Powys.” His 10 novels
included “Wolf Solent,” the story of a young man’s rebellion against
the modern world.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cowper_Powys)(WSJ, 9/8/07, p.P9)
1963 Oct 11, Jean Cocteau, French
author (La Voie Humaine), surrealist poet, artist and film director,
died at 73. His lover Lean Marais later published a biography of
Cocteau called "L’Inconcevable Jean Cocteau." In 2003 Claude Arnaud
authored the biography "Jean Coc-teau."
(SFC, 11/10/98, p.A24)(SFC, 10/6/03, p.D8)
1963 German playwright Rolf
Hochhuth produced "The Deputy." The work indicted Pope Pius XII for
Nazi complicity during WW II.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A18)
1963 Hannah Arendt authored
"Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil."
(WSJ, 8/31/99, p.A22)
1963 Nora Beloff (1919-1997),
British political writer and foreign correspondent, wrote "The General
Says No: Britain’s Exclusion from Europe."
(SFC, 2/24/96, p.A17)
1963 Alton L. Blakeslee (d.1997 at
83) wrote "Your Heart has Nine Lives" with Dr. Jeremiah B. Stamler. He
was the chief science writer for the Associated Press (AP) for 3
decades.
(SFC, 5/14/97, p.A22)
1963 John Campbell Bruce
(1906-1996) wrote "Escape From Alcatraz". It was based on a true 1962
escape. The book was turned into a film in 1979.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.20)
1963 Donald Davidson (d.2003 at
86), Prof. of Philosophy at UC Berkeley, authored "Actions, Reasons and
Causes."
(SFC, 9/4/03, p.A23)
1963 John Fowles (1926-2005),
English novelist, authored "The Collector."
(Econ, 11/1/03, p.82)(SFC, 11/8/05, p.B5)
1963 The "Feminine Mystique" by
Betty Friedan (1921-2006) was published.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A21)(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.A6)
1963 Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
and Anna Jacobson Schwartz authored “A Monetary His-tory of the United
States: 1867-1960.” They argued that the US depression of the 1930s was
the result of an inept Federal Reserve.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A15)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.80)
1963 Abraham Maslow, a pioneer of
humanistic psychology, wrote "Eupsychian Management, A Journal." It
described the management style he witnessed at Non-Linear Systems. He
labeled it "enlightened management" to describe work conditions that
incorporated synergy and led to individual "self-actualization."
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.B1)(WSJ, 10/10/97, p.B1)
1963 Ernst Mayr wrote "Animal
Species and Evolution."
(NH, 2/97, p.69)
1963 Mary McCarthy authored her
novel “The Group.” It followed a group of Vassar graduates from 1933 to
the start of WWII.
(WSJ, 4/19/08, p.W8)
1963 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote his novel "Caravans," the fruit of wide-ranging trips to
Afghanistan in the mid-1950s.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.W8)
1963 "The American Way of Death"
by Jessica Mitford (d.7/24/96) was published. It was an expose of the
funeral industry in the US. A revised edition was published in 1998.
(SFC, 6/30/96, Zone 1 p.3)(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.1)
1963 Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
later senator and ambassador, authored "Beyond the Melting Pot," a
description of the ethnic groups in NYC.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A2)
1963 Sir Lawrence van der Post
(1906-1996) wrote "The Seed and the Sower." It was filmed in 1983 as
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence with David Bowie.
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.B4)
1963 Dawn Powell published the
novel "The Golden Spur."
(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.5)
1963 Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr.,
former head of General Motors Corp., authored "My Life With General
Motors."
(F, 10/7/96, p.132)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.123)
1963 Giorgos Seferis, Turkish-born
Greek, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)
1963 Ezra Solomon (d.2002 at 82),
Stanford economics professor, authored "The Theory of Financial
Management."
(SFC, 12/21/02, p.A22)
1963 Jim Thompson authored his
novel "The Grifters." It was made into a film in 1990.
(WSJ, 8/27/01, p.A13)
1963 Charles Webb authored his
novel "The Graduate." It was turned into a movie in 1967.
(WSJ, 5/8/01, p.B1)
1964 Mar 20, Brendan Behan (41),
Irish writer, poet, died.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1964 Apr 14, Rachel L. Carson
(56), American biologist, author (Silent spring), died. She raised
public awareness of environmental pollution and ecological issues with
a number of best-selling books--notably Silent Spring (1962). In 1997
Linda Gear wrote the biography: "Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature."
(SFEC, 9/14/97, BR p.3)(HNQ, 4//01)(MC, 4/14/02)
1964 Apr 18, Ben Hecht (71),
playwright (Child of the Century), died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1964 Aug 12, Ian L. Fleming (56),
British spy, journalist, writer (James Bond), died. He had recently
sold a 51% share of the copyright of his books to Sir Jock Campbell,
who chaired the Booker Brothers. In 2000 Fleming’s heirs bought back
the copyright to the books.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming)(Econ,
5/31/08, p.90)
1964 Ken Kesey (1935-2001)
authored "Sometimes a Great Notion."
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.E1)
1964 J.P. Martin (1879-1966),
English Methodist minister, published the 1st of his Uncle se-ries of
children‘s books.
(Econ, 12/24/05,
p.113)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P._Martin)
1964 Aug 3, Flannery O'Connor
(b.1925), novelist and short story writer, died in Georgia of lupus, an
incurable, autoimmune disease. In 2009 Brad Gooch authored “Flannery: A
Life of Flannery O’Connor.”
(www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-498)(Econ, 2/28/09,
p.89)
1964 Robert Heinlein (1907-1988),
libertarian sci-fi writer, published "Farnham's Freehold."
(SFEC, 12/27/98, BR
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein)
1964 Jane Rule (1931-2007),
American-born Canadian writer, authored her novel, “Desert of the
Heart.” It later became recognized as a landmark work of lesbian
fiction.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.C5)
1965 Apr 8, Erik A. Blomberg (70),
Swedish art historian, poet, author, died.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1965 Apr 14, Perry E. Smith and
Robert E. Hickok, US murderers, were hanged. Their 1959 murder of a
Kansas farm family was described by Truman Capote (1924-1984) in his
1965 book: “In Cold Blood”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Smith_(murderer))(WSJ, 5/19/07,
p.P8)
1965 Jul 31, J. K. Rawling,
British writer, was born in Yate, Gloucestershire. She became fa-mous
for her Harry Potter fantasy series.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling)
1965 Dec 16, Somerset Maugham
(91), author, died. His books included “The Moon and Six-pence” (1919),
a novel whose main character is based on Paul Gauguin. In 2004 Jeffrey
Meyers authored "Somerset Maugham: A Life."
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.M3)(Econ, 3/6/04, p.75)
1966 Mar 21, Supreme Court
reversed Massachusetts ruling that Fanny Hill" is obscene.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1966 Apr 2, Cecil Scott Forester
(66), English author (Horatio Hornblower), died.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1966 Apr 10, Evelyn Waugh
(b.1903), British writer, satirist (Brideshead Revisited), died. He
also wrote “The Loved Ones,” a satire on California burial customs and
“Vile Bodies.” His corre-spondence with Nancy Mitford, novelist of
manners, was edited by Charlotte Mosley and pub-lished in 1997. In 2007
Alexander Waugh, grandson of Evelyn Waugh, authored “Fathers and Sons,”
his biography of the Waugh family.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A18)(SFC, 9/11/04, p.E1)(WSJ,
5/26/07, p.P6)
1966 S.Y. Agnon (1888-1970),
Jewish writer, shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with Nelly Sachs, a
German-born Swede.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/agnon.htm)(AP, 10/8/09)
1966 Robert Heinlein (1907-1988)
published his novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.” His setting was a
penal colony on the moon in 2075.
(V.D.-H.K.p.383)(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.W8)
1966 Frederick Knott (d.2002 at
86), playwright, wrote "Wait Until Dark." It ran for 373 per-formances
on Broadway. In 1967 Terence Young made it into a film.
(SFC, 12/24/02, p.A16)
1966 Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize
(1988), published his novel "Adrift on the Nile."
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.C11)
1967 Mar 7, Alice B. Toklas
(b.1877), the life partner of writer Gertrude Stein, died In Paris,
France. Her work included “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” (1954). In
2007 Janet Malcolm au-thored “Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_B._Toklas)(WSJ,
9/25/07, p.D6)
1967 May 1, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Bernard Malamud (Fixer).
(MC, 5/1/02)
1967 May 22, J. Langston Hughes
(b.1902), poet laureate, US author (Tambourines to Glory), died.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1967 Jun 3, Arthur Ransome
(b.1884), English author of children’s adventure stories, died. He is
best known for writing the “Swallows and Amazons” series of children's
books. It is believed that he served as a double agent and worked in
the Russian service after the collapse of the Czarist regime. In 1918
he wrote a propaganda pamphlet titled: “On Behalf of Russia: An Open
Letter to America.” In 2009 Roland Chambers authored “The Last
Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome.”
(Econ, 8/29/09,
p.73)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ransome)
1967 Sep 29, Author Carson
McCullers died in Nyack, N.Y., at age 50.
(AP, 9/29/07)
1967 Miguel A. Asturias
(1899-1974) of Guatemala won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP,
10/8/09))(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_%C3%81ngel_Asturias)
1967 John Gregory Dunne
(1932-2003) authored "Delano," an account of the California grape
strike.
(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A23)
1967 S.E. Hinton authored “The
Outsiders,” her 1st novel. In 1983 a film version starred Emilio
Estevez, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, and Tom Cruise. It
was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Fred Roos.
{Writer, film}
(SFC, 9/20/05, p.E1)(www.sehinton.com/bio/)
1967 Margaret Lovett (b.1910),
English writer, authored "The Great and Terrible Quest," a children's
historical novel set in medieval Italy.
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.62)
1967 Norman Mailer (1923-2007),
American writer, authored “Why Are We in Vietnam.”
(SSFC, 11/11/07, p.A7)
1967 The book "A Hundred Years of
Solitude," by Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez (b.1927), was
published in Spanish.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude)
1967 Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn
met with Olga Andreyev Carlisle in Moscow. She agreed to get smuggled
copies of "The First Circle" and "The Gulag Archipelago" published in
the West. The novel, completed in 1964, was banned by Soviet officials.
A shortened version came out in English in 1968. After some years a
feud ensued when Solzhenitsyn accused Carlisle of being motivated only
by profit and personal acclaim. An unedited English version was
sched-uled for publication in 2009.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A1)(SFC, 7/16/08, p.E6)
1968 Apr 16, Edna Ferber (b.1885),
US author and playwright, died in NYC. Her novels in-cluded “Show Boat”
(1926), which was produced on Broadway in 1927 and later adopted 4
times as a movie.
(www.apl.org/history/ferber/edna.bio.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Ferber)
1968 May 8, William Styron
(1925-2006), a white author, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
for “The Confessions of Nat Turner.” The book was based on the true
story of an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia. Some black intellectuals,
including Cornell historian John Henrik Clarke, pub-lished a critical
response to the book.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/sfeature/sf_1968_text_05.html)
1968 Aug 19, George Gamow
(b.1904), physicist and writer, died. He popularized the idea of The
Big Bang.
(V.D.-H.K.p.335)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gamow)
1968 Nov 25, Upton B. Sinclair
(b.1878), US novelist and social reformer (Jungle), died at age 90. His
work included almost 50 novels, over 20 nonfiction books, plays and
countless pieces of journalism. In 1975 Leon A. Harris Jr. (d.2000)
authored "Upton Sinclair, American Rebel." In 2006 Anthony Arthur
authored “Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair.”
(www.americanwriters.org/writers/sinclair.asp)(WSJ,
2/23/06, p.D8)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.P8)
1968 Dec 10, Thomas Merton, a
Trappist monk writer, died in Bangkok, Thailand from acci-dental
electrocution. He had just finished his 7th journal "The Other side of
the Mountain." Mer-ton was influenced by the Hindu scholar Mahanambrata
Brahmachari (d.1999). Merton's work also the spiritual autobiography
"The Seven Story Mountain." In 1978 Monica Furlong (d.2003) authored a
biography of Merton.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.3)(SFC,
11/2/99, p.A26)(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 3/26/03, p.D8)
1968 Dec 20, John Steinbeck
(b.1902), California-born author, died from a bad heart in New York
City at age 66. He won the Nobel Prize in 1940. In 1995 Jay Parini
published "John Stein-beck: A Biography."
(AP, 12/20/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB
p.35)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck)
1968 Roland Barthes (1915-1980),
French literary critic, published his essay “The Death of the Author.”
In his essay, Barthes criticizes the reader's tendency to consider
aspects of the au-thor's identity—his political views, historical
context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other bio-graphical or
personal attributes—to distill meaning from his work.
(WSJ, 8/2/08,
p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_author)
1968 Richard Bradford (1932-2002)
authored his novel "Red Sky at Morning." A film version was released in
1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bradford)(SFC,
11/8/99, p.C2)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A21)
1968 Herb Caen (1916-1997), SF
newspaper columnist, wrote his 7th book: "City of Golden Hills."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A13)
1968 Carlos Castaneda (d.1998 at
72) published his thesis: "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of
Knowledge," with the Univ. of Calif. Press. It became an int’l. best
seller. He went on to publish "A Separate Reality," "Journey to
Ixtlan," and others.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A2)
1968 "The Warrior Pharaohs" by
British author Leonard Cottrell (1913-1974) was published by Evans
Brothers Ltd, London.
(L.C.-W.P.,
1968)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cottrell)
1968 Philip Dick (1928-1982)
authored his sci-fi novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." In
1982 it was made into the film "Blade Runner."
(SFC, 6/25/02,
p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick)
1968 Frederick Exley (1929-1992),
American novelist, published his book "A Fan’s Notes," a fictional
memoir of his failed life. In 1997 Jonathon Yardley published: "Misfit:
The Strange Life of Frederick Exley."
(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Exley)
1968 Don Freeman (1908-1978),
painter and children’s writer, authored "Corduroy," the story of a
teddy bear named Corduroy, who is bought in a department store by a
girl named Lisa.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR
p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Freeman)
1968 Graham Greene wrote "Travels
With My Aunt." In 1989 it was adopted for stage by Giles Havergal,
director of the Citizens’ Theater in Glasgow.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, DB p.25)
1968 Arthur Hailey (1920-2004)
author his best-selling novel ”Airport.”
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1968 H. Richard Hornberger
(1924-1997), under the pseudonym of Richard Hooker, collabo-rated with
W.C. Heinz on the Korean War novel "MASH." It was made into a film in
1970 and a TV series (1972-1977).
(SFEC, 8/29/99, BR
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Richard_Hornberger)
1968 Chuang Hua (1931-2000), the
pen name of Stella Yang Copley, authored her novel “Crossings,” an
experimental novel on the life of a first generation Chinese-American
woman.
(www.ndpublishing.com/books/chuanghuacrossings.html)
1968 James Michener (1907-1997),
American author, wrote his travel book "Iberia," a detailed and
illustrated exploration of Spain at it was during the mid 1960s.
(SFC,10/17/97,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Michener)
1968 Anton Myrer (1922-1996),
American writer, authored "Once an Eagle," a story of the US Army from
WW I to Vietnam. It pitted an honorable officer against a self-serving
officer and sold millions of copies.
(SFC, 8/20/99,
p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Myrer)
1968 William Safire (1929-2009),
conservative journalist and presidential speechwriter, au-thored
“Safire’s Political Dictionary.”
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.11)
1968 Tom Wolfe (b.1931), American
writer and journalist, authored "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." It
was about the 1964 road trip by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters to
the NY World’s Fair.
(SSFC, 11/11/01,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wolfe)
1969 Mar 25, Max Forrester Eastman
(b.1883), US critic and essayist, died. His books in-cluded “Love
and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epoch” (1964).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Eastman)
1969 Mar 26, Writer John Kennedy
Toole (b.1937) committed suicide at the age of 32. His mother helped
get his first and only novel, "A Confederacy of Dunces," published. It
went on to win the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.
(HN,
3/26/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kennedy_Toole)
1969 Mar 26, B. Traven (b.1890),
novelist and short-story writer, died. He lived most of his life
incognito in Mexico. His work included "The Treasure of the Sierra
Madre" (1934), "The Death Ship," The Rebellion of the Hanged" and "The
General from the Jungle." In 1976 Michael L. Baumann authored "B.
Traven, An Introduction." In 2000 Michael L. Baumann authored "Mr.
Traven, I Presume."
(SFEC, 10/15/00, BR
p.8)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/traven.htm)
1969 May 4, F. Osbert S. Sitwell
(76), English poet (Who Killed Cock Robin?), died.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1969 May 5, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Norman Mailer (Armies of the Night).
(MC, 5/5/02)
1969 Aug 14, Leonard Sidney Woolf
(b.1880), English publisher, writer, died. He was the hus-band of
writer and critic Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). His books included “The
Village in the Jun-gle,” a novel based on his time in Sri Lanka
(1904-1911). In 2006 Victoria Glendinning authored “Leonard Woolf: A
Biography.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Woolf)(Econ,
9/16/06, p.93)
1969 Oct 21, Jack Kerouac (47),
Beat Generation chronicler, died of alcoholism in St. Peters-burg, Fla.
He wrote "On the Road" (1957), "Desolation Angels," "Vanity of Duluoz,"
and "Dharma Bums." Japhy Ryder the Zen hobo-poet in the book was
modeled after poet Gary Snyder. In 1979 Dennis McNally authored the
biography "Desolate Angel." In 1998 Ellis Amburn published
"Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac." In 1999 Barry
Miles pub-lished "Jack Kerouac, King of the Beats: A Portrait." In 2004
Douglas Brinkley edited “Wind-blown World: The Journals of Jack
Kerouac.”
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A22)(SFC, 9/1/96, DB p.30)(SFEC,
5/31/98, p.A17)(SFEC, 8/9/98, BR 9 p.3)(SFEC, 1/17/99, BR p.3)(SSFC,
8/11/02, p.M1)(SSFC, 10/17/04, p.M1)
1969 Nov 4, Author Alexander
Solzhenitsyn was expelled from Soviet Writers Union.
(http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/66-1-414.shtml)
1969 George MacDonald Fraser
(1925-2008), British writer, authored the novel “Flashman,” the 1st in
a series celebrating the adventures of Sir Harry Paget Flashman.
Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman is a fictional character
originally created by the author Thomas Hughes in his
semi-autobiographical work Tom Brown's Schooldays, first published in
1857. In this book, set at Rugby School, Flashman is the notorious
bully, who persecutes its eponymous hero Tom Brown.
(WSJ, 11/5/05,
p.P8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman)
1969 Clifford Irving (b.1930),
American writer, published "Fake," the story of Hungarian art forger
Elmyr de Hory (1906-1976). The int'l. de Hory scam became public in
1967. Irving and De Hory were featured in the 1975 Orson Welles film
"F" for Fake.
{USA, Books, Artist, Hungary}
(SFC, 7/29/99,
p.E6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Irving)
1969 James Michener (1907-1997),
American writer, authored "Presidential Lottery."
{Writer, USA, Books}
(SFC,10/17/97,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Michener)
1969 Mario Puzo (1920-1999) wrote
his novel "The Godfather." It was made into a hit movie in 1972.
(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)
1969 Gay Talese (b.1932) authored
“The Kingdom and the Power,” an inside story of the NY Times from the
post war period through the 1960s.
{Journalism, NYC, USA, Books}
(WSJ, 1/21/06,
p.P11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Talese)
1969 Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
authored "Slaughterhouse-Five." It was set in Dresden, Ger-many, during
the allied bombing of the city on Feb 13, 1945. He also wrote "Mother
Night" (1961) which was made into a film in 1996.
(WSJ, 10/22/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A11)
1970 Feb 17, S.Y. Agnon, Jewish
writer and Nobel Prize winner (1966) died in Jerusalem. His books
included “Days of Awe,” a compendium of Jewish practices, legends and
commentaries.
(WSJ, 9/22/07, p.W6)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/agnon.htm)
1970 Apr 11, John H. O'Hara
(b.1905), US journalist and novelist (Pal Joey, Rage to Live), died. In
2003 Geoffrey Wolff authored "The Art of Burning Bridges: The Life of
John O'Hara."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Hara)(SSFC,
8/31/03, p.M2)
1970 May 22, Joseph W. Krutch
(b.1893), US writer, died. His books included “Measure of Man” (1954).
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/323961/Joseph-Wood-Krutch)
1970 May 29, John Gunther
(b.1901), American journalist and author, died.
(www.hwwilson.com/Print/14gunther.html)
1970 Apr 11, John H. O'Hara
(b.1905), US journalist and novelist (Pal Joey, Rage to Live), died. In
2003 Geoffrey Wolff authored "The Art of Burning Bridges: The Life of
John O'Hara."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Hara)(SSFC,
8/31/03, p.M2)
1970 May 22, Joseph W. Krutch
(b.1893), US writer, died. His books included “Measure of Man” (1954).
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/323961/Joseph-Wood-Krutch)
1970 Jun 7, E.M. Forster (b.1879
as Edward Morgan Forster), English novelist, died.
(SFC,12/26/97,
p.C22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._Forster)
1970 Sep 25, Erich M. Remarque
(b.1898), German writer, died. His books included “Im West Nichts
Neues” (All Quiet on the Western Front), 1929.
(http://kirjasto.sci.fi/remarque.htm)
1970 Sep 28, John Roderigo Dos
Passos (b.1896), US writer (Manhattan Transfer), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dos_Passos)
1970 Nov 25, Yukio Mishima (45),
Japanese author and nationalist (Hara-kiri), invaded mili-tary
headquarters in Tokyo and committed ritual suicide samurai-style. His
death was an act of protest after he failed to persuade the country's
Self Defense Force to stage a coup and re-nounce the US-imposed postwar
constitution that banned Japanese aggressive military action. His books
included "The Sound of Waves" and "The Temple and the Golden Pavilion."
In 1998 Jiro Fukushima published a memoir that contained 15 letters
from Mishima and descriptions of a sexual liaison with Mishima. A
lawsuit soon halted book sales.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 10/21/99, p.B7)
1970 Richard Bach (b.1936),
American writer, authored his novel "Jonathan Livingston Sea-gull."
(SFC, 6/27/00,
p.A23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bach)
1970 Jim Bouton (b.1939) published
his controversial "Ball Four."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_Four)
1970 Dee Brown (1908-2002),
American writer, published "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," a
history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth
century and their dis-placement and slaughter by the United States
federal government.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury_My_Heart_at_Wounded_Knee)
1970 J. Desmond Clark (d.2002),
professor at UC Berkeley, authored "The Pre-history of Af-rica."
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A25)
1970 James Dickey (1923-1997),
American author, published his novel "Deliverance."
(SFC,1/21/97, p.A20)
1970 Germaine Greer (b.1939),
Australian academic writer, published "The Female Eunuch." The work
insisted on women's right to free sexuality and vaginal pleasure. In
1999 Christine Wallace published the biography: "Germaine Greer:
Untamed Shrew."
(SFEC, 7/4/99, BR
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_Greer)
1970 Tony Hillerman (1925-2008),
American writer, introduced Lt. Joe Leaphorn in his first detective
novel "The Blessing Way," as an experienced police officer who
understood, but did not share his people's traditional belief in a rich
spirit world. Officer Jim Chee, introduced in "People of Darkness"
(1978), was a younger officer studying to become a "hathaali" — Navajo
for "shaman."
(AP, 10/27/08)
1970 "Slag," the first major play
by English dramatist David Hare (b.1947), had its premier.
(WSJ, 7/16/97, p.A20)
1970 Dr. Arthur Janov authored his
int’l. bestseller “The Primal Scream,” a book that revolu-tionized the
world of psychotherapy.
(www.primaltherapy.com/SEO/items_books.shtml)
1970 Joseph Lieberman authored
"The Scorpion and the Tarantula: The Struggle to Control Atomic Weapons
1945-1969." Lieberman stood as the Democratic candidate for
vice-president with Al Gore in 2000.
(WSJ, 8/30/00, p.A26)
1970 Susan Lydon (1943-2005)
authored the feminist essay “The Politics of Orgasm” in the Rolling
Stone rock magazine.
(SSFC, 7/24/05, p.A19)
1970 Malachi Martin (d.1999 at
78), an Irish-born former Jesuit, published "The Encounter," a study of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D8)
1970 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote "The Quality of Life."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1970 George L. Mosse (1918-1999),
a Univ. of Wisconsin historian, published "Germans and Jews: The Right,
the Left, and the Search for a 'Third Force' in Pre-Nazi Germany."
(SFEC, 1/31/99,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mosse)
1970 Lewis Mumford (1895-1990),
American historian of technology and science, published "The Myth of
the Machine."
(Wired, 8/96,
p.168)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford)
1970 Michael Ondaatje, Sri
Lanka-born writer, authored his novel "The Collected Works of Billy the
Kid."
(SSFC, 9/9/01, DB p.70)
1970 Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
authored “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” in which he de-clared that
large doses of Vitamin C could ward off colds.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling)
1970 Robert Peterson (1906-2006)
authored “Only the Ball Was White,” the first history of baseball’s US
Negro Leagues.
(SFC, 2/21/06, p.B5)
1970 Harold Pinter (b.1930),
English playwright and actor, wrote his play "Old Times."
(SFC, 6/16/98, p.D1)
1970 Charles A. Reich (b.1928), a
professor at Yale Univ. Law School, published his "Green-ing of
America" first in the New Yorker and then as a book. In this work Reich
predicted that "something called Consciousness III would soon create a
social revolution by wiping out its ugly forbear, Consciousness
II." In 1995 he published a new book, "Opposing the System,"
wherein he explained why the greening of America never took place. In
2000 Roger Kimball followed the thread with "The Long March."
"…everything is sucked through the sieve of politics and the ide-ology
of victimhood."
(WSJ, 10/3/95, p.A-18)(WSJ, 6/28/00,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Reich)
1970 Richard Scammon (1915-2001)
and Ben J. Wattenberg (b.1933) authored "The Real Majority." They
argued that the Democratic Party needed to focus on social issues in
order to survive.
(SSFC, 4/29/01, p.A27)
1970 Yasundo Takahashi
(1912-1996), professor at UC Berkeley, wrote his textbook "Control and
Dynamic Systems." It became a standard reference in the field of
control engineering, the study of how machines work.
(http://tinyurl.com/6qjaoo)(http://catalog.library.ksu.edu.sa/digital/153142.html)
1970 Alvin Toffler (b.1928)
"Future Shock," and argued that technology was changing so rap-idly
that individuals could find themselves strangers in their own cultures.
(HN, 10/4/00)(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1971 Apr 3, Manfred Bennington Lee
(65), detective writer, died. Brooklyn cousins Daniel Na-than,
alias Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred
Bennington Lee (b.1905), used Ellery Queen as both a fictional
character and a pseudonym.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellery_Queen)
1971 May 3, John Toland
(1912-2004), American author and historian, won a Pulitzer prize
for “Rising Sun” (1970) which chronicles Imperial Japan from its
Manchurian involvement follow-ing World War I to the end of World War
II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Toland_(author))
1971 Jun 1, Reinhold Niebuhr
(b.1892), US theologist, died. His Serenity Prayer became widely used
by Alcoholics Anonymous: "God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which
should be changed, and the wis-dom to distinguish the one from the
other." His books included “Moral Man and Immoral Soci-ety” (1932) and
“Nature & Destiny of Man” (1942). (SSFC, 5/4/03, p.F2)(WSJ,
12/29/07, p.W8)
1971 Al Alvarez (b.1929), British
writer, authored the best seller "The Savage God: A Study of Suicide."
(WSJ, 12/27/00,
p.A10)(www.oundlesociety.org/AlAlvarez.asp)
1971 Jacques Barzun (b.1907) and
Wendell Hertig Taylor (1905-1985) authored “A Catalog of Crime.” It
became recognized as the best compendium of mystery and espionage
literature ever assembled.
(WSJ, 2/3/07,
p.P12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Catalogue_of_Crime)
1971 Frederick Forsyth (b.1938)
published his thriller novel "The Day of the Jackal," about an attempt
to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. It was made into a film in 1973. It
was remade into a 1997 film called "The Jackal" and another film about
Carlos the Jackal, unrelated to the book, called "The Assignment."
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.B8)(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)(WSJ,
4/18/97, p.A16)(SFEC, 8/24/97, DB p.65)
1971 John Gardner (1933-1982),
American novelist, authored his novel "Grendel" based on the Beowulf
poem. It retold the story from the monster’s point of view.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R53)
1971 Ivan Illich (1926-2002),
Austrian philosopher, anarchist social critic and former Catholic
priest, authored "De-Schooling Society."
(SFC, 12/4/02,
p.A28)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich)
1971 Ursula LeGuin (b.1929),
American author, published "The Lathe of Heaven," a science fiction
novel where all the dreams of the main character come true.
(WSJ, 1/1/00,
p.R8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin)
1971 Robert Ludlum (1927-2001)
authored "The Scarlatti Inheritance," his 1st suspense novel.
(SFC, 3/13/01, p.A25)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ludlum.htm)
1971 John McPhee (b.1931),
American pioneer of narrative non-fiction, authored "Encounters with
the Archdruid."
(SFC, 5/25/96,
p.A13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McPhee)
1971 James Michener (1907-1997),
American writer, authored "Kent State: What Happened and Why" as well
as his novel "The Drifters."
(SFC,10/17/97,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Michener)
1971 Walker Percy (1916-1990),
American Southern writer, authored his novel "Love in the Ruins."
(SSFC, 4/20/03,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Percy)
1971 Donald Richie (b.1924)
authored his novel ""The Inland Sea," about a lonely American
island-hopping across Japan’s Inland Sea.
(SSFC, 11/10/02,
p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Richie)
1971 Anne Sexton (1928-1974),
American poet and writer, authored "Transformations." It re-told
classic fairy stories with a Freudian twist and personal references and
formed the basis for Conrad Susa’s 1973 opera of the same name.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A12)(SFC, 6/23/98,
p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton)
1971 Ngugi wa Thiongo, Kenyan
writer, published his novel “Petals of Blood.” He was soon imprisoned
by the government of Pres. Daniel arap Moi for his satire. Upon
his release he went into exile and established himself as an American
academic.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.70)
1971 Hunter S. Thompson
(1937-2005), "gonzo journalist," wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas." It was made into a film in 1998. The term gonzo was 1st applied
to Thompson by his journalist friend Bill Cardoso (d.1006 at 68). The
term had kicked around Boston for some time and was used by youth in
the 1950s to describe something as over the top.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C1)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.B7)
1972 Jan 7, John Berryman, US poet
(Imaginary Jew), died after he jumped off a bridge. His former wife,
Eileen Simpson, died in 2002. Simpson authored her memoir "Poets in
Their Youth" in 1982.
(MC, 1/7/02)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A24)
1972 Feb 15, Edgar P. Snow
(b.1905), US journalist and author (Battle for Asia, Red Star Over
China), died in Switzerland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org)
1972 Apr 24, Natalie Clifford
Barney (b.1876), lesbian writer and US expatriate, died in Paris. In
2002 Suzanne Rodriguez authored "Wild Heart, A Life: Natalie Clifford
Barney’s Journey From Victorian America to the Literary Salons of
Paris."
(SSFC, 10/27/02,
p.M6)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7157)
1972 May 20, Walter Winchell (75),
columnist, narrator (Untouchables), died.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1972 Jun 12, Edmund Wilson
(b.1895), author and American literary critic, died. His novels
included “Memoirs of Hecate County” (1946). In 1995 Jeffrey Meyers
wrote a biography of Mr. Wilson, wherein he documented Wilson’s
relationships with four wives and numerous mis-tresses as well as his
writings. In 2005 Lewis M. Dabney authored “Edmund Wilson: A Life in
Literature.” In 2007 the Library of America published 2 volumes of his
literary criticism.
(WSJ, 4/26/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 8/26/05,
p.W6)(www.nndb.com/people/238/000084983/)(WSJ, 9/28/07, p.W4)
1972 George Alec Affinger (d.2002
at 55) authored his 1st novel "What Entropy Means to Me."
(SFC, 4/30/02, p.A24)
1972 Dr. Robert C. Atkins
(1930-2003), cardiologist, published his weight loss plan "Dr. At-kins’
Diet Revolution," which allowed patients to eat fat but restricted
carbohydrates.
(SFC, 4/18/03, p.A1)
1972 John Berger (b.1926), English
art critic and novelist, authored his Booker Prize-winning novel “G.”
Berger won the Booker Prize for his novel "G." He later authored "A
Seventh Man."
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M2)(SSFC, 8/7/05,
p.C1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berger)
1972 Heinrich Boll (1917-1985) of
West Germany won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP,
10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_B%C3%B6ll)
1972 Paul Bowles published his
autobiography: "Without Stopping." In 1999 Jennifer Baichul premiered
her documentary on Bowles: "Let It Come Down, The Life of Paul Bowles."
(SFC, 7/12/99, p.E3)
1972 Carol (Dariff) Botwin (d.1997
at 68) wrote "Sex and the Teenage Girl."
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A21)
1972 Leo Buscaglia (d.1998 at 74),
published his book "Love."
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A21)
1972 Herb Caen, SF newspaper
columnist, wrote his 8th book "The Cable Car and the Drag-ons."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A13)
1972 Alex Comfort (1920-2000),
British author, published his "Joy of Sex." The book sold 12 million
copies worldwide.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.E1)
1972 Timothy Crouse authored “The
Boys on the Bus,” an account of the press pack covering the 1972
presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon and George McGovern.
(WSJ, 12/1/07,
p.W10)(www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a3133.asp)
1972 Thomas M. Disch authored his
science fiction novel "334," on events following the pas-sage of the
Revised Genetic Testing Act of 2011.
(WSJ, 1/1/00, p.R8)
1972 Janet Flanner (1892-1978),
American writer, authored "Paris Was Yesterday." She served as the
Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until she
retired in 1975.
(SFC, 6/16/96,
T-5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Flanner)
1972 George V. Higgins (d.1999 at
59) published "The Friends of Eddie Coyle." It was made into a 1973
film with Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.C10)
1972 Vance Packard (1914-1996)
wrote "A Nation of Strangers," a critique of the decline of the
American family and loss of community ties.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B6)
1972 Ismael Reed (b.1938),
African-American writer, authored "Mumbo Jumbo."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Reed)
1972 Eudora Welty (1909-2001),
Mississippi based writer, authored "The Optimist’s Daugh-ter." In 1973
it won her a Pulitzer Prize.
(SSFC, 3/29/09, p.G5)
1972 Yasunari Kawabata (b.1899), a
1968 Nobel laureate in literature, committed suicide without
explanation.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)
1973 Feb 22, Elizabeth Bowen
(b.1899), Irish-British novelist and short story writer, died. Her
books included “A Time in Rome” (1959).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bowen)(WSJ,
6/14/08, p.W10)
1973 Mar 6, Pearl Sydenstricker
Buck (b.1892), author, died. Her books included “The Good Earth”
(1931), for which she won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_S._Buck)
1973 Mar 26, Noel Coward (73),
English playwright, died. He was called "The Master" and his work
included "The Vortex," "Hay Fever," "Private Lives," "Brief Encounter"
and "Blithe Spirit." "Noel Coward: A Biography" by Philip Hoare was
published in 1996. Another biography, "A Tal-ent to Amuse" by Sheridan
Morley, published in 1974, was recommended. In 1970 he was given
knighthood.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A10)(SFEC, 8/25/96, BR p.9)(SS,
3/26/02)
1973 Jun 9, John Creasey (b.1908),
British mystery writer, died. He authored at least 600 mystery novels
under 28 pseudonyms. His novel Gideon’s Day was turned into the film
“Gideon of Scotland Yard” (1959).
(WSJ, 1/31/09, p.W8)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/creasey.htm)
1973 Aug 17, Conrad Aiken
(b.1889), American Pulitzer winning poet and novelist, died.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/caiken.htm)
1973 Sep 2, John R. R. Tolkien,
British story writer, died of ulcer at 81. His work included "The
Hobbit" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. In 2007 his son
Christopher Tolkien edited “The Children of Hurin,” compiled from notes
and material left by his father.
(WSJ, 7/15/96, p.B1)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.94)
1973 Dec 28, Alexander
Solzhenitsyn published "Gulag Archipelago" in Paris. It was an ex-pose
of the Soviet prison system.
(AP, 12/28/97)(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W15)
1973 Ernest Becker authored "The
Denial of Death." It reflected a cultural belief that the de-nial of
death in the US was a pathology responsible for Western woes from
materialism to mili-tarism.
(SSFC, 12/8/02, p.M2)
1973 Shaun Herron (1912-1989),
Ireland-born author, authored “The Whore-Mother,” a novel about the
Troubles in Northern Ireland.
(WSJ, 10/28/06,
p.P12)(www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/herron_s.shtml)
1973 Dr. Mary C. Raugust Howell
(1932-1998) contributed to the women’s medical guide: "Our Bodies,
Ourselves." The book arose out of a 35-cent, 136-page booklet called
Women and Their Bodies, published in 1970 by the New England Free
Press, and written by 12 Boston feminist activists.
(SFC, 2/6/98,
p.A23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Bodies,_Ourselves)
1973 Erica Jong (b.1942), American
author, published her novel "Fear of Flying."
(WSJ, 8/31/98,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erica_Jong)
1973 Primo Levi (1920-1987)
authored "The Periodic Table," a memoir that incorporated many of his
experiences at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.M1)
1973 James Michener (1907-1997),
American author, published "A Michener Miscellany."
(SFC,10/17/97,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Michener)
1973 Jean Pasqualini (1926-1997)
authored "Prisoner of Mao" with journalist Rudolph Chelminski. He told
of his 7 years in China as a political prisoner in a labor camp. He was
born in Beijing to a Corsican father and Chinese mother, Mr. Pasqualini
was educated in French and British schools in Tianjin and Shanghai. His
Chinese name was Bao Ruowang.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A19)(http://tinyurl.com/4oc5vw)
1973 Thomas Pynchon (b.1937),
American author, published his 760-page novel "Gravity’s Rainbow."
(SFEC, 8/6/00, DB
p.39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon)
1973 Patrick White (1912-1990),
British-born Australian, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP,
10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_White)
1974 Sep 21, Jacqueline Susann
(b.1918), author, died of cancer. Her books included "Valley of the
Dolls" (1966). In 1987 Barbara Seaman authored Susann's biography:
"Lovely Me." In 2000 the film "Isn't She Great" starred Bette Midler as
Susann.
(SFC, 1/26/00,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Susann)
1974 Woodward and Bernstein wrote
"All the President's Men." A film based on the book was made in 1976.
In 2003 Woodward and Bernstein sold their Watergate research papers to
the Univ. of Texas for $5 million.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.E3)(WSJ, 4/18/03, p.W13)
1974 Robert A. Caro authored "The
Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York."
(WSJ, 5/1/02, p.D7)(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.M2)
1974 Cleveland Amory authored "Man
Kind," a seminal book on his work with animals.
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.D4)
1974 Doubleday published the 1st
edition of "Jaws" by Peter Benchley (1940-2006). In 1975 Steven
Spielberg turned it into a movie.
(http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Jaws)(SFC,
2/13/06, p.B3)
1974 Raoul Berger (d.2000 at 99),
constitutional scholar, authored "Executive Privilege," which helped
undermine Nixon's claims for executive privilege. Executive privilege
1st gained recognition with a 1974 Supreme Court ruling that endorsed a
president's right to keep internal office communications private.
(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A25)(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A10)
1974 Michael R. Best and Frank H.
Brightman edited "The Book of secrets of Albertus Mag-nus," which
contained a recipe for Greek Fire.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.10)
1974 Heinrich Boll authored “The
Lost Honor of Katharina Blum.”
(Econ, 6/9/07, p.97)
1974 Steward Brand published "II
Cybernetic Frontiers."
(Wired, 5/97, p.101)
1974 Britannica under editor
Warren Preece (d.2007) published its 15th edition (Britannica 3), which
featured three parts: the Propaedia, the Micropaedia, and the
Macropaedia.
(SFC, 4/17/07, p.D7)
1974 Leo Buscaglia (d.1998 at 74),
published his book "The Way of the Bull."
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A21)
1974 Victor Fuchs of Stanford
authored “Who Shall Live,” an examination of the American health care
system.
(Econ, 7/17/04, Survey p.9)
1974 Emily Hahn (1905-1997) wrote:
"Once Upon a Pedestal: An Informal History of Women's Lib."
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A20)
1974 Prof. Charles M. Hardin
(1908-1997) wrote "Presidential Power and Accountability."
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.E2)
1974 Eyvind Johnson and Harry
Martinson of Sweden shared the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)
1974 Ken Kesey began a literary
journal titled "Spit in the Ocean." 6 of 7 issues were pub-lished by
1981.
(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.E7)
1974 Stephen Koch authored
“Stargazer,” a study of Andy Warhol as a filmmaker.
(SFC, 9/20/06, p.E5)
1974 Peter Maas (d.2001 at 72)
published his book "King of the Gypsies." It highlighted the Tene-Bimbo
Gypsy clan in New York City.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.A21)(SFC, 8/24/01, p.D7)
1974 Anica Vesel Mander (d.2002),
Yugoslavian-born prof. of Women's Studies, authored "Feminism as
Therapy."
(SFC, 6/22/02, p.A18)
1974 James Michener published
"Centennial."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A12)
1974 Robert Nozick (d.2002 at 63),
Harvard philosopher, authored "Anarchy, State and Uto-pia" in which he
attacked forms of paternalistic government.
(SFC, 1/25/02, p.A32)
1974 John Paterson (d.2002), UC
Berkeley professor, authored "The Novel as Faith: The Gospel According
to James, Hardy, Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence and Virginia Woolf."
(SFC, 4/19/02, p.A27)
1974 Dr. John Weir Perry (d.1998
at 84), psychiatrist, published "The Far Side of Madness." He believed
that psychotic states could lead to a higher state of consciousness.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.C2)
1974 Robert Pirsig published "Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." "The real cycle you're working
on is a cycle called yourself."
(SFEC, 1/3/99, BR p.4)
1974 Jeraldine Saunders, cruise
ship director, authored “Love Boats.” This sparked the 1977 TV show
“The Love Boat.”
(SSFC, 8/7/05,
p.C5)(www.tvland.com/shows/loveboat/main.jhtml)
1974 Patricia Nell Warren
published the groundbreaking gay novel "The Front Runner." It was about
a gay track coach who falls in love with his star runner.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.E3)
1974 Eleanor Cameron (1912-1996)
received the National Book Award for "The Court of the Stone Children."
She wrote 17 books for children and one novel, "The Unheard Music," and
2 collections of criticism on children's literature.
(SFEC, 10/13/96, p.B6)
1974 The book "Palinuro of Mexico"
by Fernando del Paso (b.1935) won the Premio de Mex-ico in manuscript
form but was not published in Mexico until 1980. The 1st edition was
published in Spain in 1977.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, BR
p.4)(www.complete-review.com/reviews/pasofd/palinuro.htm)
1975 Feb 14, Pelham Graham (PG)
Wodehouse (b.1881), English, US writer (Piccadilly Jim), died at age
93. 58 Penguin editions of his books were done by artist Jos Armitage
(d.1998 at 84), who also contributed to "Punch." In 2004 Robert McCrum
authored “Wodehouse.”
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.21)(SFC, 11/19/04, p.W16)
1975 May 5, Michael Shaara won
Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel “Killer Angels.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Pulitzer_Prize)
1975 Jun 28, Rod Serling (b.1924),
writer and director of the TV series "Twilight Zone" and "Night
Gallery," died. He was remembered in the 1995 PBS production titled:
"Submitted for Your Approval."
(WSJ, 11/27/95,
p.A-14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Serling)
1975 Jul 30, James Benjamin Blish
(b.1921), sci-fi author (Star Trek Reader, Black Sunday), died. Blish
also wrote criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William
Atheling Jr.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Blish)
1975 Nov 5, Lionel Trilling
(b.1905), American author and literary critic, died. His books
in-cluded “Beyond Culture” (1965), a collection of essays concerning
modern literary and cultural attitudes toward selfhood.
(SFC, 10/25/96,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Trilling)
1975 Dec 7, Thornton Wilder
(b.1897), American novelist and playwright, died. In 2008 his selected
letters, edited by Robin G. Wilder and Jackson R. Bryer, were published.
(HN, 4/17/99)(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.W8)
1975 Thomas Harris authored “Black
Sunday,” a novel set around a terrorist conspiracy tar-geting the Super
Bowl.
(WSJ, 10/28/06, p.P12)
1975 Paul Theroux (b.1941)
authored “The Great Railway Bazaar,” an account of his 1973 train
travels through Europe and Asia. In 2008 he authored “Ghost Train to
the Eastern Star,” a follow up to his 1973 itinerary.
(SFC, 8/6/08, p.E2)
1976 Jan 12, Dame Agatha Christie
(b.1890) (Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan), Eng-lish mystery
writer, died in Wallingford, England. She also wrote romances under the
name Mary Westmacott, but is remembered for her 66 mystery novels. Her
work with mystery novels, particularly featuring detectives Hercule
Poirot or Miss Marple, have given her the title the “Queen of Crime”
and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the
devel-opment of the mystery novel. Two of her most famous novels might
be Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and Death on the Nile (1937).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie)(SFC,12/26/97, p.C22)(AP,
1/12/98)
1976 Sep 10, Dalton Trumbo
(b.1905), US novelist and screenwriter, died at age 70. His books
included “Johnny Got His Gun” (1939). He used pseudonyms for a number
of Hollywood screenplays after he was blacklisted as one of the
“Hollywood Ten” by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAtrumbo.htm)
1976 Oct 25, Raymond Queneau
(b.1903), Parisian surrealist, died. His work included the prewar novel
"Les Enfants du Limon." In 1998 it was translated to English as
"Children of Clay."
(SFEC, 8/2/98, BR
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Queneau)
1976 Nov 23, Andre Malraux
(b.1901), author (Conquerors) and French Minister of Culture
(1958-1969), died.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/malraux.htm)
1976 Paul Bowles (1910-1999),
American-born composer and writer who lived in Tangier, Mo-rocco, wrote
his short story Allal. In 1996 three of Bowles’ stories were made into
a film titled "Halfmoon" by Frieder Schlaich and Irene von Alberti.
Bertolucci had earlier transferred his novel "The Sheltering Sky" into
film. A biography of Bowles by Millicint Dillon, "You Are Not I: A
Portrait of Paul Bowles" was published in 1998.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. C3)(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR
p.3)(www.paulbowles.org/bowlesbiography.html)
1976 Norman Maclean (1902-1990)
published "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories." It was a story
about fly fishing in Montana. Recorded books put out a cassette version
in 1993 with other stories that included "Logging and Pimping and ‘Your
Pal, Jim’," and "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the
Sky."
(RB,
1993)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean)
1976 A German edition of the
diaries of Austrian writer Robert Musil (1880-1942) was pub-lished. In
1999 Philip Payne published an abridged version "Diaries 1899-1942."
(SFEC, 1/31/99, BR p.9)
1977 Apr 11, Jacques Prevert (77),
French poet (La puil et le beau), died.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1977 Apr 19, Alex Haley received a
special Pulitzer Prize for his book "Roots."
(HN, 4/19/99)
1977 May 9, James Jones (b.1921),
US writer (From Here to Eternity), died. His work in-cluded the pre-WW
II novel "From Here to Eternity." His daughter later wrote the novel "A
Sol-dier’s Daughter never Cries," which was made into a film with Kris
Kristofferson as James Jones.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jjones.htm)(SFEC, 7/12/98, Par
p.17)
1977 Jul 2, Vladimir Nabokov,
Russian-born author, died in Switzerland. In 1996 a 3-volume collection
of his prose work was issued by the Library of America. In 1999 Kurt
Johnson and Steven Coates authored "Nabokov's Blues: The Scientific
Odyssey of a Literary Genius."
(WSJ, 4/22/99, A20)(SFEC, 10/17/99, BR
p.4)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nabokov.htm)
1977 Oct 27, James M. Cain
(b.1892), US writer (Postman Always Rings Twice), died in Uni-versity
Park, Maryland.
(www.britannica.com)
1977 Dec 9, Clarice Lispector
(b.1920), Ukraine-born Brazilian-Jewish writer, died in Brazil. From
1952-1959 she lived in the US. Her books included “The Passion
According to G.H” (1964). In 2009 Benjamin Moser authored “Why This
World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarice_Lispector)
1977 John Cheever (1912-1982),
American writer, authored his novel “Falconer,” which soon became a
best seller.
(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)
1977 John Gregory Dunne
(1932-2003) authored his novel "True Confessions." It was about the
Black Dahlia case, a 1947 murder in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A23)(SFC, 1/2/04, p.D3)
1977 Emile Rogier Heier (d.1997 at
55), Belgian-born foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, was
released from a Colombian prison. He returned to the US and began his
book "Down in Colombia" (2003). He later wrote "Lester Leaps In," a
biography of the jazz saxophonist Les-ter Young.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.C2)
1977 Iris Murdoch (1919-1999),
Irish born writer and philosopher, authored "The Fire and the Sun: Why
Plato Banished the Artists." In 1994 Murdoch was diagnosed with
Alzheimer’s Dis-ease. In 1998 her husband, John Bayley, published
"Elegy for Iris."
(WSJ, 2/17/98, p.A20)
1977 Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
authored "Dragons of Eden." In 1978 he won a Pulitzer Prize for the
book.
(SFC, 12/21/96, p.A1)
1978 Aug 9, James G. Cozzens
(b.1903), US writer (Guard of Honor, Pulitzer), died. His nov-els
included “The Last Adam” (1933), “The Just and the Unjust” (1942),
“Guard of Honor” (1948; Pulitzer Prize), “By Love Possessed” (1957),
and “Morning, Noon, and Night” (1968).
(http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/cozzens.html)
1978 Oct 5, Isaac Bashevis Singer
(1902-1991), Polish-born American author, was named winner of the Nobel
Prize for literature.
(AP, 10/5/98)
1978 Nov 7, Janet Flanner
(b.1892), American writer and journalist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Flanner)
1979 Feb 9, Allen Tate (b.1899),
poet and exponent of the New Criticism, died in Nashville.
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W9)(http://tinyurl.com/5g27ry)
1979 Jun 1, Janice Holt Giles
(b.1905), American historical novelist, died. Her 13 novels in-cluded
"Hannah Fowler" and "The Believers."
(WSJ, 7/29/99,
p.A24)(www.cumberlandbooks.com/janiceholtgiles.php)
1979 Jul 3, Helen Van Slyke,
English writer, died. She left a manuscript that was completed by James
Elward (1929-1996) titled "Public Smiles, Private Tears" that became a
best-seller. It was about a woman’s rise in the world of retail fashion.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A20)(http://tinyurl.com/3bzrf3)
1979 Aug 22, James T. Farrell
(b.1904), author (Young Lonigan), died. In 2004 Robert K. Landers
authored "The Life and Times of James T. Farrell."
(SFC, 2/26/04, p.E1)
1979 Harmony Books published “The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. In the book the
British writer described the Babel fish, a live fish placed in the ear
that translates any form of language.
(www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=133)(SFC,
4/29/98, p.E1)
1979 Arthur C. Clarke authored his
science fiction novel “The Fountains of Paradise” about the
construction of a space elevator.
(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey p.4)
1979 English writer Penelope
Fitzgerald won the Booker Prize for her novel "Offshore."
(WSJ, 4/8/97, p.A20)
1979 Douglas Hofstadter (b.1945)
authored his book "Godel, Escher, Bach." In 1980 he won the Pulitzer
Prize for general non-fiction.
(WSJ, 7/15/99, p.A16)
1979 Lyall Watson (1939-2008),
South Africa-born scientist and author, proposed the hun-dredth monkey
theory in his book: Lifetide: A Biology of the Unconscious.”
(SFC, 7/22/08,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_Monkey)
1979 Penelope Mortimer (1918-1999)
won the Whitbread Prize for her memoir "About Time." The 2nd part of
her autobiography was published in 1993.
(http://facstaff.unca.edu/moseley/whitbread.html)
1979 Marge Piercy authored her
science fiction novel "Woman on the Edge of Time," on travel to the
year 2137.
(WSJ, 1/1/00, p.R8)
1979 V.A. Pritchett (1900-1997),
English writer, published his collection of short stories "On the Edge
of the Cliff."
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A21)
1979 William Styron authored
"Sophie’s Choice." In 1996 he gave composer Nicholas maw permission to
turn it into an opera. The opera premiered Dec 7, 2002 at the Royal
Opera House, Covent Garden.
(SFC, 12/11/02, p.D5)
1979-1981 James Lees-Milne (1908-1997), English
biographer, kept diaries during this period that were published in 2001
as "Deep Romantic Chasm: Diaries 1979-1981."
(SSFC, 8/12/01, DB p.63)
1980 Feb 25, Roland Barthes
(b.1915), French philosopher and writer, died. His books in-cluded
“Mythologies” (1957), a collection of his essays.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes)
1980 Apr 15, Existentialist
philosopher, novelist and dramatist, Jean-Paul Sartre (b.1905) died in
Paris at the age of 74. He won the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature and
his work included "Be-ing and Nothingness." Philosophical replies to
this work were written by Claude Levi-Strauss: "The Raw and the
Cooked," a book that popularized structuralism in France, and by
Michael Foucault: "Words and Things," ("The Order of Things" in the
American edition). "If you're lonely while you’re alone, you’re in bad
company."
(WUD, 1994, p.1269)(SFEC, 4/19/98, BR p.8)(SFEC,
6/21/98, Z1 p.8) (AP, 4/15/99)
1980 May 1, American Book Award
went to William Styron for "Sophie's Choice" and T. Wolfe for "Right
Stuff."
(http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id99.htm)
1980 Jun 7, Henry Miller (born
1891), writer, died in California at age 88. His books included “Tropic
of Cancer.”
(www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3118)
1980 Jul 1, Charles Percy Snow
(b.1905), British writer (Friends & Associates), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow)
1980 Dec 10, Czeslaw Milosz of UC
Berkeley, a Polish-born American, received the Nobel Prize in
literature from King Carl Gustaf in Sweden.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F2)(AP, 10/8/09)
1981 Mar 3, William S. Burroughs
Jr. (b.1947), writer, died. He bore the name of both his fa-ther, a
Beat writer, and his great grandfather, the original inventor of the
Burroughs adding ma-chine. His 2 novels included “Speed” and “Kentucky
Ham.” In 2006 David Ohle edited and com-piled “Cursed From Birth: The
short Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs Jr.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs,_Jr.)(SSFC,
12/24/06, p.M3)
1981 Apr 13, Washington Post
reporter Janet Cooke received a Pulitzer Prize for her feature about an
8-year-old heroin addict named "Jimmy."; Cooke relinquished the prize
two days later, admitting she had fabricated the story.
(AP, 4/13/00)
1981 May 9, Nelson Algren (72), US
writer (Man with the Golden Arm), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Algren)
1981 May 18, William Saroyan
(b.1908), American writer, died in Fresno, Ca. He wrote some 60 books
that included: "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1934),
"The Human Comedy," which became a 1943 film, and the 1939 play "The
Time of Your Life." In 2002 John Leggett authored "A Daring Young Man:
A Biography of William Saroyan."
{Writer, USA, California, Biography}
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A1)(HN, 8/31/00)(SFC, 4/1/02,
p.A11)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M1)
1981 Oct 25, Ariel Durant
(83), US author, died. She was co-author and collaborator on sev-eral
of her husband’s (Will Durant: 1885-1981) works. They received the
Pulitzer Prize for the eleven volume series: “The Story of
Civilization” (1935-1975). Born Chaya, which means "life" (Ida in
English) Kaufman on May 10, 1898 in Proskurov (now Khmelnitski) Russia
to Jewish parents, she immigrated with her mother, three sisters and
older brother to the US, landing in New York in November of 1901. She
married Will in 1913 when she was 15 and he was 28, and preceded him in
death by a matter of days.
(www.willdurant.com/ariel.htm)
1981 Daniel Halevi Bloom,
American-Jewish author, invented the characters Bubbie and Zadie,
Yiddish for grandma and grandpa, as an alternative to Santa Claus. In
1985 he wrote “Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House” and invited Jewish
children to respond with letters.
(SFC, 12/22/06, p.A1)
1981 Elias Canetti (1905-1994),
Bulgarian-born British novelist and essayist, won the Nobel Prize in
Literature. His ancestors were Sephardic Jews who had been expelled
from Spain in 1492.
(AP,
10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Canetti)
1981 Lynne Cheney, wife of Dick
Cheney, authored a racy historical romance titled "Sisters." Plans to
reissue the novel in 2004 were cancelled.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.A2)
1981 Martin Cruz Smith introduced
Russian police investigator Arkady Renko in his best-selling novel
“Gorky Park.”
(WSJ, 11/19/04, p.W16)
1982 Feb 18, Edith Ngaio Marsh
(b.1895), New Zealand detective writer, producer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngaio_Marsh)
1982 Mar 2, Philip K. Dick (53),
science fiction writer, died. His work included dozens of nov-els and
over 100 short stories. His novel "Valis" (Vast Active Living
Intelligence System) was an autobiographical work. In 1989 Lawrence
Sutin wrote the biography: "Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K.
Dick." The 1982 film Blade Runner was loosely based on his novel: "Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." The 2003 film "Paycheck" was based
on his 1953 same name novel. In 2004 Emmanuel Carrere authored “I Am
Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick.
(WSJ, 4/27/99, p.A20)(SFC, 6/25/02, p.D1)(SFC,
12/27/03, p.D1)(Econ, 4/17/04, p.83)
1982 Mar 6, Ayn Rand (b.1905),
author and founder of the Objectivist philosophy, died in NY. Her
novels included "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." In 1987
Barbara Branden wrote the biography titled "The Passion of Ayn Rand."
In 1999 Nathaniel Branden published "My Years With Ayn Rand," an
account of his 18-year relationship with Rand. In 1999 the US Postal
Service issued a 33 cent stamp in her honor. In 2009 Anne Heller
authored “Ayn Rand and the World She Made,” and Jennifer Burns authored
“Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right.”
(http://tinyurl.com/2nl7hk)(http://tinyurl.com/3a34t9)(SFEC, 8/18/96,
PM p. 2)(SFC, 10/25/98, p.D8)(Econ, 10/24/09, p.95)
1982 May 10, Peter Weiss (b.1916),
German playwright (Marat-Sade), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Weiss)
1982 Jun 18, John Cheever
(b.1912), American Pulitzer Prize winning writer, died. His work
included "the Wapshot Chronicle" and "the World of Apples." In 2009
Blake Bailey authored “Cheever: A Life.”
(BS, 5/3/98,
p.13E)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cheever)(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)
1982 Sep 3, Frederic Dannay
(b.1905), US detective writer, died. He collaborated with Man-fred Lee
under the joint pseudonym Ellery Queen.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0200366/)
1982 Sep 14, John C. Gardner
(b.1933), US, writer (Life & Times of Chaucer High), was killed in
a motorcycle accident. In 2004 Barry Silesky authored "John Gardner:
Literary Outlaw."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gardner)(WSJ,
2/13/04, p.W8)
1983 Feb 24, Tennessee Williams,
US playwright born as Thomas Lanier Williams (1911), died in NYC. He
left a $10 million estate to support his sister and directed that
anything left go to support aspiring writers at the Univ. of the South
of Sewanee. His plays included “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “The Rose
Tattoo” originally titled "The Eclipse of May 29, 1919." In 1995 Lyle
Leverich (d.1999 at 79) published "Tom: The Unknown Tennessee
Williams," a definitive work on the playwright's formative years. In
2007 editor Margaret Bradham Thornton published “Notebooks: Tennessee
Williams.”
(http://tinyurl.com/s8zm5)(SFC, 12/25/99,
p.B4)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M6)
1983 Feb 25, Tennessee Williams
(71), playwright, was found dead in his NYC hotel suite.
(AP, 2/25/08)
1983 Mar 1, Arthur Koestler
(b.1905), Hungary-born British writer (Dialogue With Death), died in a
double suicide with his wife in London. His novels included "Darkness
at Noon" (1940). In 1998 David Cesarani authored "Arthur Koestler: The
Homeless Mind." In 2009 Michael Scam-mell authored “Koestler: The
Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic.”
(SSFC, 1/3/10, Books
p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler)
1983 Mar 15, Rebecca West (born in
1892 as Cicily Fairfield), British writer, died. Her books included
"The Return of the Soldier" (1918) and "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon,"
which was writ-ten following a trip through Yugoslavia. She had a
relationship with H.G. Wells that led to the birth of a son, Anthony.
In 1996 Carl Rollyson wrote her biography: "Rebecca West: A Life." Her
pen name came from a character in Ibsen’s play "Rosmersholm." In 2000
the "Selected Letters of Rebecca West" was edited by Bonnie Kime Scott.
In 2003 Bernard Schweitzer edited and in-troduced her work "Survivors
in Mexico."
(WSJ, 3/6/00, p.A28)(SSFC, 6/8/03,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_West)
1983 Apr 18, Alice Walker (b.1944)
won a Pulitzer Prize for "The Color Purple."
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.M1)
1983 May 21, Eric Hoffer (b.1902),
longshoreman-philosopher, died in SF. His writings in-cluded "The True
Believer" (1951), a critical view of mass movements, "The Passionate
State of Mind," "The Ordeal of Change," and "The Temper of the Time."
(SFC, 1/22/00,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer)
1983 Aug 29, William Goyen
(b.1915), Texas-born novelist and playwright, died in Los Ange-les. His
1st novel was “House of Breath” (1950).
(www.tsha.utexas.edu)(www.inthe80s.com/deaths/died1983.shtml)
1983 "Sisters In Affliction:
Circumcision and Infibulation of Women in Africa" by Raquiya H. Abdalla
was published.
(NH, 8/96, p.65)
1983 Edward Albee wrote his play
"The Man Who Had Three Arms."
(SFEC, 7/27/97, DB p.33)
1983 Charles Allen wrote "A
Mountain in Tibet."
(NH, 5/96, p.68)
1983 Daniel Boorstin, American
historian, published "The Discoverers." [see 1975-1987]
(WSJ, 3/29/96, p.A-9)
1983 Marion Zimmer Bradley (d.1999
at 69) published "The Mists of Avalon," a woman's per-spective of the
King Arthur legend.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C2)
1983 John le Carre authored “The
Little Drummer Girl,” a novel set amidst the conflict be-tween the
Palestinians and Israelis.
(WSJ, 10/28/06, p.P12)
1983 Amy Clampitt (1920-1994),
American poet, published “The Kingfisher."
(WSJ, 11/7/97, p.A17)
1983 "The Return of Martin Guerre"
by Natalie Zemon Davis was published. It was a historical account of a
true story from 16th cent. France.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A12)
1983 Umberto Eco authored "The
Name of the Rose," and established a new genre of learned who-dunit
novels.
(WSJ, 6/1/01, p.W12)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.M1)
1983 Frederick Vanderbilt Field
(d.2000 at 94) published his autobiography: "From Right to Left."
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A21)
1983 Derek Freeman published
"Margaret Mead in Samoa," in which he laid waste Mead's portrayal of
1920s Samoan society.
(WSJ, 3/3/99, p.A17)
1983 William Golding (1911-1993),
English author, received the Nobel Prize for literature.
(WSJ, 10/5/95, p.A-12)
1983 Jane Goodall published "In
the Shadow of Man."
(SFEC, 12/15/96, zone 1 p.3)
1983 Seymour Hirsch published "The
Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House." It won a National
Book Critics Circle award.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.A12)
1983 Joyce Johnson authored "Minor
Characters," a memoir of the Beat generation. In 2000 she authored
"Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958," that
covered her re-lationship with Jack Kerouac.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, BR p.7)
1983 Stanley Karnow published
"Vietnam: A History."
(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A19)
1983 Prof. William Webster Lammers
of USC (d.1997 at 60) published "Public Policy and Ag-ing."
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A19)
1983 David Landes, Harvard
historian, published "Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the
Modern World."
(SFEC, 3/22/98, BR p.8)
1983 David Mamet, playwright,
wrote "Glengarry Glen Ross."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1983 Rigoberta Menchu,
Guatemalan-born Mayan Indian and human rights activist, authored her
book "I, Rigoberta Menchu." In 1992 she won the Nobel peace Prize. In
1998 David Stoll, a US anthropologist, authored "Rigoberta Menchu and
the Story of All Poor Guatemalans." He asserted a number of
inaccuracies in Menchu’s original book.
(SFEC, 1/19/97, Par p.5)(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C20)
1983 James Michener wrote his
novel "Poland."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1983 Amos Oz, novelist, published
"In the Land of Israel," a collection of essays.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, BR, p.4)
1983 Maynard Parker, editor of
Newsweek, authorized the publication of the spurious "Hitler Diaries."
The work was identified as "patent and obvious forgeries" by Charles
Hamilton (1914-1996), "philography" expert.
(WSJ, 8/23/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B6)
1983 Donald E. Russell and Prof.
Donald Savage (d.1999 at 81) wrote "Mammalian Paleo-faunas of the
World," it was a compendium of mammals through the ages.
(SFC, 4/14/99, p.C5)
1983 Richard Shevell (d.2000 at
89), aeronautics professor at Stanford, authored the text "Fundamentals
of Flight."
(SFC, 4/27/00, p.A24)
1983 The book "I Will Go On
Living" by Japanese writer Chio Uno (1898-1996) was pub-lished.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A21)
1983 Lynda Van Devanter (d.2002 at
55) authored "Home Before Morning," the 1st major autobiography by a
woman veteran. It inspired the 1988-1991 TV series "China Beach."
(SFC, 11/27/02, p.A26)
1983 Christa Wolf, East German
writer, authored her novel “Cassandra.”
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.P6)
1983 "Quintessence" was published.
It described items whose design was so good that they could not be
improved upon.
(SFC, 7/3/96, zz-1,p.3)
1984 Apr 28, Silvia A. Warner,
writer, died.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1984 May 16, Irwin Shaw (71), US
writer (Rich Man, Poor Man), died.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1984 Jun 26, Carl Foreman (69),
producer, writer (Born Free, High Noon), died of cancer.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1984 Jun 30, Lillian Hellman
(b.1905), writer, died in Massachusetts. Her work included the play
"The Little Foxes" (1939), and her memoirs "Scoundrel Time" and
"Pentimento." The 1977 film "Julia" was based on a chapter from
Pentimento which described Muriel Gardiner, an American medical student
at the Univ. of Vienna active in anti-Nazi resistance. In 2005 Deborah
Martinson authored “Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels.”
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A21)(WSJ, 4/26/99, p.A16)(WSJ,
5/24/99, p.A28)(Econ, 12/17/05, p.82)
1984 Aug 25, Truman Capote (59),
American novelist, playwright, and short story writer, died in the arms
and guest bedroom of Johnny Carson’s ex-wife, Joanne. His
autobiographical no-vella, "The Grass Harp," was made into a film
directed by Walter Matthau in 1996. He also au-thored "Other Voices,
Other Rooms," and "Breakfast At Tiffany’s." In 1997 George Plimpton
published his biography: "Truman Capote." In 2004 Gerald Clarke edited:
“Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote.”
(SFC, 10/11/96, p.C3)(WSJ, 12/11/97,
p.A21)(SFEC,12/14/97, p.D9)(AP, 8/25/99)(SSFC, 9/19/04, p.M3)
1984 Harriet Doerr (1910-2002) won
the American Book Award for 1st fiction for "Stone for Ibarra."
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.A30)
1984 Salim Moussa Achi (b.1909),
aka Dr. Dahesh, Lebanese author and humanist, died. His art collection
later formed the core of the Dahesh Museum of Art in NYC.
(WSJ, 9/9/03, p.D6)(www.humanitiesweb.org)
1984 Richard Brautigan (49),
writer, died from self-inflicted gunshot wound in Bolinas, Ca. His work
included "Trout Fishing in America" and A Confederate General from Big
Sur." In 1989 Keith Abbott authored the biography: "Downstream from
Trout Fishing in America: A Memoir of Richard Brautigan." In 1999 Edna
Webster published "The Edna Webster Collection of Undis-covered
Writings." In 2004 Greg Keeler authored “Waltzing with the Captain:
Remembering Richard Brautigan.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.E1)(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.M3)
1984 English writer Anita Brookner
authored “Hotel du Lac.” It won the 1984 Booker Prize.
(www.volume5.com/dulac/hotel_du_lac_book_review.html)
1985 May 8, Theodore Sturgeon
(b.1918), sci-fi author (Hugo, It, Caviar), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Sturgeon)
1985 May 25, Robert Nathan (91),
US writer, poet (Portrait of Jennie), died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1985 Sep 19, Italo Calvino
(b.1923), Italian writer, died. A collection of his essays was soon
published titled "The Literature Machine." In 1999 the original
11 essays and 25 others were published under the title: "Why Read the
Classics," translated by Martin McLaughlin. In 2003 McLaughlin
published “Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings By Italo Calvino.”
(SFEC, 10/24/99, BR p.5)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.M4)
1985 Oct 1, E. B. White (Elwyn
Brooks White, b.1899), writer, author of “Charlotte's Web” and “The
Elements of Style,” died in Maine.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ebwhite.htm)
1985 Nov 25, Elsa Morante
(b.1912), Italian writer, died. Her books included “House of Liars”
(1948). In 2008 Lily Tuck authored the biography “Woman of Rome: A Life
of Elsa Morante.”
(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.W11)
1985 Coleman Dowell (b.1925),
fiction writer, died. His work included "Island People" and "Ja-bez."
(WSJ, 2/11/03, p.D8)
1985 Dominick Dunne (1925-2009)
authored “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles,” based on the sensa-tional Woodward
murder case of 1955. It was made into a television movie in 1987,
directed by John Erman, and starring Genevieve Allenbury, Ann-Margaret,
Elizabeth Ashley, Claudette Colbert and Stephen Collins. It proved to
be Claudette Colbert's last film.
(SFC, 8/27/09, p.A9)
1985 Claude Simon (1913-2005,
French novelist, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP,
10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Simon)
1986 Jan 4, Christopher Isherwood,
British born author, died of prostate cancer in Santa Monica, Ca. He
was best know for his 1935 semi-autobiographical "The Berlin Stories,"
which was the basis for the 1966 musical Cabaret and made into a 1972
film. His life-partner was painter Don Bachardy. His "Diaries: Volume
II, 1939-1960" were published in 1997. In 2005 Pe-ter Parker authored
“Isherwood: A Life Revealed.”
(www.booksfactory.com/writers/isherwood.htm)(SFC,
1/16/97, p.E3)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.B6)
1986 Feb 11, Frank Patrick Herbert
(b.1920), sci-fi author (Dune, 1965), died of cancer in Wisconsin.
{Writer, USA}
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert)
1986 Mar 18, Bernard Malamud
(b.1914), writer, died. His work included "Talking Horse: Ber-nard
Malamud on Life and Work," edited by Alan Cheuse and Nicholas Delbanco
(1997). In 2006 his daughter authored “My Father Is a Book: A Memoir of
Bernard Malamud.” In 2007 Philip Davis authored “Bernard Malamud: A
Writer’s Life.”
(www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/m/malamud21.htm)(SSFC,
3/19/06, p.M3)(WSJ, 1/15/08, p.D5)
1986 Apr 5, Manly Wade Wellman
(b.1903), sci-fi author (Devil's Planet), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manly_Wade_Wellman)
1986 Apr 14, Simone de Beauvoir
(b.1908), French feminist author, died in Paris. Her books included
“The Second Sex” (1949). In 2008 her Wartime Diary was published in
English.
(AP, 4/14/02)(SFC, 12/23/08, p.E3)
1986 Apr 15, Jean Genet (75),
French playwright (Lesson Negres), was found dead in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Genet)
1986 Apr 17, Pulitzer prize
awarded to Larry McMurtry for "Lonesome Dove."
(http://tinyurl.com/s7rzf)
1986 May 14, Institute for War
documents published Anne Frank's complete diary.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1986 May 15, Theodore H. White
(71), US journalist (Making of Pres, Pulitzer), died.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1986 Jun 14, Jorge Luis Borges
(b.1899), Argentine author (Book of Sand), died in Geneva. In 1998 a
new English translation by Andrew Hurley of his "Collected Fictions"
was published. In 1999 Alexander Coleman edited "Selected Poems." Also
in 1999 Eliot Weinberger edited "Se-lected Non-Fictions." In 2004 Edwin
Williamson authored “Borges: A Life.”
(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.1)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)(WSJ,
8/17/99, p.A18)(WSJ, 8/5/04, p.D8)
1986 Mark Mathabane authored
"Kaffir Boy," an account of the poverty, violence and racism under
apartheid. In 2000 his sister, Miriam Mathabane authored "Miriam’s
Song: A Memoir." The award-winning book was later frequently banned in
US schools due to two paragraphs de-scribing child prostitution.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, BR p.7)(SFC, 4/12/07, p.A1)
1986 Vladimir Voynovich (b.1932),
Russian dissident writer, wrote his satirical dystopian novel "Moscow
2042."
(WSJ, 7/15/97,
p.A18)(http://wapedia.mobi/en/Moscow_2042)
1987 Feb 12, Friends of the poet
Boris Pasternak and of Russian culture agreed that the 1958 resolution
expelling Pasternak from the Writers' Union had to be rescinded. People
met and voted in the same ornate conference room where, thirty years
earlier, the great poet had been cast out of the union.
(www.thenation.com/archive/search.mhtml)
1987 Apr 11, Erskine Caldwell
(83), novelist (Tobacco Road), died.
(www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-497)
1987 Apr 11, Primo Levi (b.1920),
Italian chemist, Auschwitz survivor and writer, died in Italy. In 2002
Carole Angier authored: "Primo Levi: A Biography." His books included
the 1947 mem-oir "If This Is a Man" and "The Periodic Table." In 2002
Carole Angier authored the biography "The Double Bond."
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.M1)(WSJ, 6/14/02,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primo_Levi)
1987 Apr 16, Winners of the 1987
Pulitzer Prizes included August Wilson's "Fences" for drama and Peter
Taylor's "A Summons to Memphis" for fiction.
(AP, 4/16/97)
1987 Cleveland Amory authored "The
Cat Who Came for Christmas," a national best-seller about his cat Polar
Bear.
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.D4)
1987 Molefi K. Asante wrote his:
"The Afrocentric Idea."
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 34)
1987 Ravi Batra authored "The
Great Depression of the 1990s."
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34BB)
1987 Virginia Reade Belmontez
(d.1998 at 68) authored "Mexico Barbarro 1987," a book that exposed the
past of Mexico’s Pres. Salinas and his party’s oppression of the
Mexican people.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.C2)
1987 Martin Bernal wrote Vol. 1 of
his "Black Athena." Vol. 2 came out in 1991.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 34)
1987 Allan Bloom, Prof. of
political philosophy at the Univ. of Chicago, published "The Closing of
the American Mind." In 2000 Saul Bellow authored the novel "Ravelstein"
based on the life of Bloom.
(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.W11)(WSJ, 2/2/00, p.A26)
1987 Stewart Brand wrote "The
Media Lab."
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A17)
1987 Dorothy Bryant wrote her
historical novel "The Confessions of Madame Psyche."
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.C14)
1987 James Lee Burke published his
1st Dave Robicheaux detective novel "Neon Rain."
(SFC, 9/11/00, p.B7)
1987 Lincoln Caplan authored "The
Tenth Justice: The Solicitor General and the Rule of Law."
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.C2)
1987 "Southern Food" by John
Egerton was published.
(SFC, 8/14/96, zz-1 p.1)
1987 Neil Folberg published "In a
Desert Land: Photographs of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan." It focused on
the Sinai Desert and was re-issued in 1998.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, BR p.6)
1987 Joseph Greenberg (d.2001),
Stanford linguist, authored "Language in the Americas." He assigned the
650 native languages of North and South America to 3 groups.
(SFC, 5/15/01, p.C2)
1987 William Greider wrote
"Secrets of the Temple." It was a comprehensive general account of how
the Federal Reserve operates.
(WSJ, 1/17/97, p.A11)
1987 Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese
Zen master, published "Being Peace," the first of his 35 books and
tapes.
(SFC, 10/12/97, Z1 p.3)
1987 David Ignatius authored his
novel “Agents of Innocence.” It became a classic in the es-pionage
genre.
(WSJ, 4/7/07, p.P10)
1987 Kim Jong Il, son of North
Korean leader Kim Il Sung, authored the treatise: “Theory of Cinematic
Art.”
(www.korea-dpr.com/library/209.pdf)
1987 "Modern Geology Vol. II" by
Andrew Kitchener was published.
(NH, 8/96, p.58)
1987 Patricia Limerick published
"The Legacy of Conquest." She realigned standard history to account for
minorities and women in the unbroken settlement of the US West.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1987 "Moon Tiger," a novel by
Penelope Lively won the Booker Prize.
(WSJ, 9/20/96, p.A12)
1987 Malachi Martin (d.1999 at
78), an Irish-born former Jesuit, published "The Jesuits."
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D8)
1987 The "Food of Southern Italy"
by chef Carlo Middione won the Tastemaker Award in the International
Cookbook category.
(SFEM, 7/21/96, p.16)
1987 Toni Morrison wrote her novel
"Song of Solomon."
(SFEC, 12/15/96, DB p.61)
1987 V.S, Naipaul (b.1932),
Trinidad-born English novelist, authored "The Enigma of Arrival."
(SFC, 10/12/01, p.C1)
1987 M.I.T. Press published "A Few
Good Men from Univac." It was a history of the computer.
(WSJ, 11/22/96, p.A12)
1987 Caryl Phillips wrote "The
European Tribe," his "impressionistic tour of a continent with a long
history of persecuting Jews and ignoring blacks."
(WSJ, 5/21/97, p.A12)
1987 Richard Preston wrote "First
Light," a book on the romantic era of astronomy. A new edi-tion was
published in 1996.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, BR p.7)
1987 Barbara Raskin (d.1999 at 63)
published her novel "Hot Flashes."
(SFC, 7/27/99, p.A17)
1987 Richester Register, student
of Paolo Soleri, published his "Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a
Healthy Future."
(PacDis, Spring/'94, p. 29)
1987 Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003),
German director, published her autobiography: "Leni Riefenstahl: A
Memoir."
(SFC, 1/19/99, p.B5)
1987 George Seldes, former Berlin
correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, wrote his autobi-ography:
"Witness to a Century."
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T5)
1987 George Soros, businessman,
published "The Alchemy of Finance." It offered his ideas on a wide
range of subjects including his own success. The Quantum Fund is one of
Mr. Soros’ investment vehicles.
(WSJ, 2/27/95, p.A-10)
1987 Larry R. Squire authored
“Memory and Brain.” It became a classic in the biology of memory.
(WSJ, 4/7/07, p.P10)
1987 Choreographer Paul Taylor
published his autobiography "Public Domain."
(WSJ, 4/12/99, p.A21)
1987 Walter Weintz (1915-1996)
wrote his memoir "The Solid Gold Mailbox." He had been a pioneer of
direct mail advertising and used a Persian poet’s lines to sell the
Reader’s Digest: "If thou hast two pennies, spend one for bread."
Weintz sent out 100 million pennies in pairs and advertised that the
1st be kept for luck and the 2nd be used as a down payment to Reader’s
Digest.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A22)
1987 Chancellor Williams published
his work: "The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Is-sues of Race
from 4500 BC to 2000 AD." He also wrote "The Re-Birth of African
Civilization," an account of his 1953-1957 research project on the
nature of education in Europe and Africa.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 34)
1987 "The Truly Disadvantaged" by
William Julius Wilson first discussed the "mismatch the-sis," which
points to the problem of unskilled inner-city workers trapped in
poverty and unquali-fied and unable to reach jobs in the hi-tech urban
environment. The problem continued to be discussed in his 1996 book:
"When Work Disappears."
(WSJ, 9/3/96, p.A12)
1987 William Wilson (d.1999 at 51)
authored "An Incomplete Education," designed to fill in knowledge
lacked by college graduates.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C6)
1987 Tom Wolfe published his first
novel "Bonfire of the Vanities" in book form, a complete re-write after
it was serialized in Rolling Stone Magazine. The title referred to an
event on Feb 7, 1497, when followers of the priest Girolamo Savonarola
collected and publicly burned thou-sands of objects in Florence, Italy.
Wolfe’s book was a story of Reagan-era avarice.
(WSJ, 10/30/98,
p.W1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Vanities)
1987 Arthur Miller wrote his play
"I Can’t Remember Anything." He also authored in this year his
autobiography "Timebends."
(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A17)(Econ, 11/1/03, p.82)
1988 Mar 31, The novel "Beloved"
by Toni Morrison was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, while the
Charlotte (N.C) Observer won the prize for public service for its
coverage of the Praise The Lord scandal.
(AP, 3/31/98)
1988 Apr 12, Alan Stewart Paton
(b.1903), South African writer (Cry The Beloved Country), died. He
founded and served as president of the Liberal Party (1953-68).
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apaton.htm)
1988 May 8, Science fiction author
Robert A. Heinlein died in Carmel, Calif., at age 80. His books
included “Starship Troopers” (1958) and “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,”
(1966).
(AP, 5/8/98)(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.D7)
1988 Aug 2, Raymond Carver
(b.1938), American poet, short story writer (Furious Season), died. His
books included “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” (1981). In
2009 Carol Sklenicka authored “Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Carver)(SSFC,
11/22/09, Books p.F1)
1988 Aug 24, Max Shulman (69),
author (Dobie Gillis, Tender Trap), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1988 Oct 13, Egyptian novelist
Naguib Mahfouz was named recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
(AP, 10/13/98)
1989 Jan 18, Bruce Chatwin
(b.1940), British travel writer, died of AIDS in France. His books
included "In Patagonia" (1984) "Songlines," "The Viceroy of Ouidah,"
and "On the Black Hill." In 1997 a collection of incidental writing was
published: "Anatomy of Restlessness."
(SFEC, 8/10/97, BR
p.3)(http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/stafflag/brucechatwin.html)
1989 Feb 12, Thomas Bernhard
(b.1931), Austrian novelist and playwright, died. He hated petty and
conservative Austrian qualities and was known as a teller of difficult
truths. His 1963 novel “Frost” was published in the US in 2006.
(SSFC, 10/22/06,
p.M4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bernhard)
1989 Mar 7, Iran dropped
diplomatic relations with Britain over Salmon Rushdie's book.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1989 Apr 19, Daphne Du Maurier
(b.1907), English writer, died. Her books included “Jamaica Inn” (1936)
and “Rebecca” (1938).
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dumaurie.htm)
1989 Jul 17, Isidore Feinstein
Stone (b.1907), author (I.F. Stone's Weekly), died in Boston. In 2006
Myra MacPherson authored “All Governments Lie,” a biography of Stone.
In 2009 D.D. Guttenplan authored “American Radical: The Life and Times
of I.F. Stone.”
(http://tinyurl.com/nm97z)(WSJ, 9/30/06, p.P8)(Econ,
5/16/09, p.90)
1989 Jul 23, Donald Barthelme
(b.1931), US writer, died. His work included over a hundred short
stories and 4 novels. In 2009 Tracy Daugherty authored “Hiding Man: A
Biography of Donald Barthelme.”
(WSJ, 2/21/09,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Barthelme)
1989 Aug 26, Irving Stone, US
writer born as Irving Tennenbaum (Love is Eternal, Lust for Life), died
in Los Angeles.
(http://www.britannica.com)
1989 Sep 4, Georges Simenon (86),
Belgian/French writer and director (Maigret), died. The Belgian born
writer, authored some 200 novels. Many featured the crime-busting hero
Inspector Maigret.
(SFC, 6/9/00, p.D5)(MC, 9/4/01)
1989 Joseph Garber (1943-2005)
authored his novel “Rascal Money.” It was initially intended as a
nonfiction work titled “In Search of Shabiness,” a response to the Tom
Peters book “In Search of Excellence.”
(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.A21)
1990 Mar 13, Bruno Bettelheim
(86), Austrian-US psychoanalyst, committed suicide. His books included
"The Empty Fortress" (1967), on infantile autism and "the Use of
Enchantment" (1976), a study of fairy tales. In 1996 Richard Pollak
wrote: "The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim." In
2002 Theron Raines authored "Rising to the Light: A Portrait of Bruno
Bettelheim."
(SFC, 12/29/96, BR p.1)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.M4)(MC,
3/13/02)
1990 May 10, Walker Percy
(b.1916), Mississippi-raised physician, novelist (Lancelot), died of
cancer in Covington, Louisiana. His book "The Moviegoer" was the 1962
winner of the National Book Award." His last book, The Thanatos
Syndrome, appeared in 1987.
(www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/percy_walker/)(WSJ,
3/26/03, p.D8)
1990 Jun 27, Salman Rushdie,
condemned to death by Iran, contributed $8600 to help their earthquake
victims.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1990 Aug 2, Norman Maclean
(b.1902), writer and professor of English, died in Chicago. His books
included "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories" (1976).
(RB,
1993)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean)
1990 Aug 30, Edmund G. Love
(b.1912), Michigan-based writer, died in Flint. His book ''Sub-ways Are
for Sleeping'' (1957) was the basis for the Broadway musical (1961).
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.34)(http://tinyurl.com/c6rqnh)
1990 Dec 4, Eric Larrabee (68),
magazine editor, author, arts administrator, teacher and champion of
the arts, died at his home in Manhattan. His books included “Commander
in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War”
(1987).
(WSJ, 1/12/08, p.W9)(http://tinyurl.com/2j2tkr)
1990 Dec 14, Friedrich Durrenmatt
(b.1921), Swiss author and playwright, died. In 2006 the Univ. of
Chicago published a translation of his selected writings in 3 volumes.
"What was once thought can never be unthought."
(AP,
11/15/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_D%C3%BCrrenmatt)
1990 John Guare wrote his play
"Six Degrees of Separation."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1990 The book "The Plains of
Passion" by Jean Auel (b.1936) was the best-selling fiction work of the
year.
(WSJ, 5/24/99,
p.R4)(www.geocities.com/auelpage/auel.html)
1990 Robert Bly published "Iron
John," an examination of male cultural passage through myth.
(USAT, 6/28/96, p.6D)
1990 Ron Chernow wrote "The House
of Morgan, " a biography of the banker.
(WSJ, 8/8/97, p.A11)
1990 Kenneth C. Davis published
"Don't Know Much About History."
(SFEC, 1/10/99, BR p.9)
1990 Wayne Dynes edited "An
Encyclopedia of Homosexuality."
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A3)
1990 Bret Easton Ellis (26)
authored his novel "American Psycho." It was about a wall street trader
who moonlights as a serial killer. In 2000 the film version made its
premier.
(SFC, 4/12/00, p.E1)
1990 Sir Vivian Fuchs published
his autobiography "A Time to Speak." Fuchs had led an ex-pedition
across Antarctica in 1958.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A22)
1990 Col. David H. Hackworth
(1931-2005), Vietnam war veteran, authored “About Face: The Odyssey of
an American Warrior.”
(SFC, 5/7/05, p.B5)
1990 Charles Kuralt (1934-1997)
wrote "A Life on the Road" and it became a No.1 nonfiction bestseller.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A5)
1990 Richard Milner,
anthropologist, authored "Encyclopedia of Evolution." Milner later
devel-oped the one-man musical show: "Darwin: Live & in Concert."
(WSJ, 5/8/02, p.AD9)
1990 Ray Monk wrote his biography
of "Ludwig Wittgenstein."
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.A16)
1990 Roger Morris wrote the
biography: "Richard Milhaus Nixon."
(SFEC, 2/23/97, BR p.3)
1990 Hallie Crawford Stillwell (d.
1997 at 99), a Big Bend Texas pioneer, wrote her autobiog-raphy. A
sequel was to be completed by her great niece.
(SFC, 8/21/97, p.C4)
1990 Adam Kufeld published "El
Salvador." He had made 8 trips to the country as a photog-rapher
between 1985-1989.
(SFEM,11/16/97, p.28)
1990 James P. Womack and Daniel T.
Jones wrote "The Machine That Changed the World, a study of Toyota
Motor Corp.’s manufacturing methods."
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A11)
1990 "The Romance of the Three
Kingdoms," a 16th century fictional account of the wars of the three
rival kingdoms in China, was published in paperback.
(NH, 7/96, p.58)
1990 Charles Johnson wrote his
novel "Middle Passage," which won a National Book Award.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, BR p.1)
1990 Peter Matthiessen published
his novel "Killing Mr. Watson." It became the first of a tril-ogy about
a Florida homesteader, who murdered some 5 dozen people over his
lifetime.
(SFEC,12/797, p.B11)
1990 James Michener wrote his
novel "Pilgrimage" and "The Eagle and the Raven."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1990 Julia Phillips (d.2001 at
57), movie producer, authored ""You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town
Again," an insider chronicle of Hollywood’s top echelons.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A16)
1990 Thomas Pynchon (b.1937) wrote
his novel "Vineland."
(SFEC, 4/27/97, BR
p.1)(www.pynchon.pomona.edu/bio/facts.html)
1990 John O’Brien (d.1994)
published his novel "Leaving Las Vegas." It was made into a 1995 film
and was the semi-autobiographical account about an alcoholic who goes
to Las Ve-gas to drink himself to death.
(SFC, 8/20/98, p.B4)
1990 Ronald Reagan published his
memoir “An American Life.”
(SSFC, 6/6/04, A18)
1990 Chiyo Uno (1897-1996) was
awarded a title by the emperor and named a "person of cul-tural merit."
Her best know book was "Ohan" (1957).
(SFC, 6/11/96,
p.A21)(http://asian-literature.suite101.com/article.cfm/uno_chiyo)
1990 George Will, political
columnist, authored "Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball." He told of
how the game was played through extended portraits of manager Tony La
Russa, pitcher Orel Hershiser, hitter Tony Gwynn and fielder Cal Ripken
Jr.
(WSJ, 5/21/03, p.D10)
1990 Edward O. Wilson (b.1929)
published his Pulitzer prize book: "The Ants," written with Bert
Holldobler.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A16)
1991 Apr 3, English novelist
Graham Greene died at age 86. His wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning, died
in 2003 at age 98. Greene had told his wife that he had had 32 other
women. His books included “The Quiet American” (1955). In his so-called
“Catholic” novels he chal-lenged the idea that God is a cruel,
unstinting Rules Keeper. In 2004 Norman Sherry completed “The Life of
Graham Greene, Vol. III, 1955-1991.”
(AP, 4/3/01)(SFC, 8/25/03, p.B4)(SFC, 10/2/04,
p.E2)(WSJ, 10/6/04, p.D14)
1991 Apr 4, Max Frisch (d.1991),
Swiss architect and writer, died. His books included “I’m Not Stiller”
(1958), a look at the nature of identity.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Frisch)(WSJ,
4/25/09, p.W8)
1991 Apr 5, Kitty Kelly published
a book knocking Nancy Reagan.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1991 Apr 9, The 1991 Pulitzer
Prize for fiction was awarded to John Updike for "Rabbit at Rest"; the
drama prize went to Neil Simon for "Lost in Yonkers." In journalism,
The Des Moines Register received the gold medal for public service for
its series about rape victim Nancy Ziegenmeyer, who’d allowed her name
and pictures to be used.
(AP, 4/9/01)
1991 May 3, Jersy Kosinski (57),
author (Being There), committed suicide.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1991 Jun 10, Vercors (b.1902)
[Jean Bruller], French writer (Silence of Mer), died.
(http://440.com/twtd/archives/feb26.html)
1991 Jul 12, A Japanese professor
who had translated Salman Rushdie’s "The Satanic Verses" was found
stabbed to death, nine days after the novel’s Italian translator was
attacked in Milan.
(AP, 7/12/01)
1991 Jung Chang (b.1952) authored
her family portrait “Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China,” which soon
became an international best seller.
(Econ, 2/21/09,
p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Swans)
1991 The novel "Scarlet" by
Alexander Ripley (d.2004) was the best-selling hardcover book of the
year (2.1 mil copies). It was an official sequel to "Gone With the
Wind."
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R6)(SFC, 1/26/04, p.B4)
1992 Apr 6,
Isaac Asimov (72), science-fiction author, died in New York. He had
authored 467 books.
(AP, 4/6/97)(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.D1)
1992 Apr 7, The
Sacramento Bee, The New York Times and Newsday won two Pulitzer prizes
each; playwright Robert Schenkkan was honored for "The Kentucky Cycle,"
novelist Jane Smiley for "A Thousand Acres."
(AP, 4/7/97)
1992 Apr 13, Wallace Stegner
(b.1909), novelist (Pulitzer 1972), died in New Mexico.
(http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/librarylocations/main/envir/wsbio.htm)
1992 Aug 29, Mary Norton
(88), children’s book author (Borrowers), died in England.
(www.sfsite.com/09b/bor41.htm)
1992 Nov 7, Richard Yates
(b.1926), US author, died in Birmingham, Ala. His books included
"Revolutionary Road" (1961), and "Disturbing the Peace" (1975). In 2003
Blake Bailey authored "Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard
Yates."
(WSJ, 7/3/03,
p.D8)(www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmarticleID=3460)
1992 Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize
(1988) winning Egyptian author, published his novel "Sugar Street." It
was the most political and last book of his “Cairo Trilogy.”
(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
1993 Mar 23, Hans Werner Richter
(b.1908), German writer, founder (Gruppe 47), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Werner_Richter)
1993 Apr 13, Pulitzer Prizes were
awarded to David McCullough for his biography "Truman," to Robert Olen
Butler for his collection of short stories "A Good Scent from a Strange
Mountain" and to Tony Kushner for his drama "Angels in America:
Millennium Approaches." The gold medal for public service went to The
Miami Herald for its Hurricane Andrew coverage.
(AP, 4/13/98)
1993 Apr 15, Leslie Charteris
(85), British mystery writer (Saint), died.
(www.nndb.com/people/820/000104508/)
1993 May 9, Penelope Gilliatt
[Conner], British author, died.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9104302)
1993 May 18, Pamela M. Cunnington
(67), English architect, writer, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1993 Jun 19, Sir William Golding
(b.9/19/1911), English Nobel Prize-winning author (1983), died at his
home in Cornwall, England, at age 81. His novel “Lord of the Flies” was
published in 1954. other novels included “Pincher Martin” (1956) and
“The Inheritors” (1955). In 2009 John Carey authored “William Golding:
The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies.”
(AP,
6/19/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Golding)(Econ, 9/5/09,
p.93)
1993 Oct 20, James Leo Herlihy
(b.1927), gay author (Midnight Cowboy), committed suicide in Los
Angeles.
(www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/herlihy.htm)
1993 Toni Morrison (b.1931,
American novelist, won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her novels are
known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed black
characters. Among her best known novels are “The Bluest Eye,” “Song of
Solomon,” and “Beloved,” which won the Pul-itzer Prize for Fiction in
1988.
(AP,
10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison)
1993 Amin Maalouf (b.1949),
Lebanese writer, won France’s Prix Goncourt for his novel “The Rock of
Tanios.”
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.91)
1994 Mar 28, Absurdist playwright
Eugene Ionesco died in Paris at age 81.
(AP, 3/28/99)
1994 Apr 12, Playwright Edward
Albee won his third Pulitzer prize for "Three Tall Women"; the Pulitzer
prize for fiction went to E. Annie Proulx for "The Shipping News"; the
gold-medal award for public service journalism went to the Akron
Beacon-Journal of Ohio.
(AP, 4/12/99)
1994 Apr 16, Ralph Ellison
(b.1914), author of "Invisible Man" (1952), died in NYC of pancre-atic
cancer at age 80. His unfinished novel "Juneteenth" was published in
1999. His books also included "Living With Music." In 2002 Lawrence
Jackson authored "Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius." In 2007 Arnold
Rampersad authored “Ralph Ellison.”
(AP, 4/16/99)(WSJ, 6/18/99, p.W13)(WSJ, 6/14/02,
p.W11)(SFC, 5/14/07, p.C2)
1994 Aug 15, Shepherd Mead (80),
author (How to Succeed at Business), died of stroke In London, England.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1994 Sep 7, James Clavell
(b.1924), Australian-born author and director (King Rat, Shogun), died
in Switzerland.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0165412/)
1994 Oct 14, Nobel Prize-winning
writer Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was stabbed several times in the neck
by a 21-year-old assailant on a Cairo street. Muslim militants were
blamed in the attack. The wound resulted in the paralysis of his
writing hand.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A16)(AP, 10/14/04)
1994 Nov 19, Julian Symons
(b.1912)), British detective writer (Death's Darkest Face), died.
(http://neptune.spaceports.com/~queen/Whodunit__writers.html)
1994 Nov 30, Guy Debord (b.1931),
French political theorist and filmmaker, died. His books included
“Society of the Spectacle” (1967).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord)
1994 John Berendt published
"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," his personal impres-sions on
the city of Savannah, Ga., which became a best-seller.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T8)(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.T11)
1994 Louis de Bernieres authored
"Corelli’s Mandolin." It sold 2.5 million copies and won the Granta
Prize. In 2001 it was made into a film titled "Captain Corelli’s
Mandolin" with Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz.
(WSJ, 10/28/98, p.A20)(SFC, 8/17/01, p.C3)(SSFC,
8/15/04, p.M1)
1994 Harold Bloom published "The
Western Canon," a defense of the great books that were under attack due
to the current "political correctness."
(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W8)
1994 Caleb Carr authored his best
seller “The Alienist.”
(www.salon.com/books/int/1997/10/cov_si_04carr.html)
1994 Taslima Nasreen (32),
Bangladeshi writer, authored her novel "Lajja" or "Shame," which
depicts violence against minority Hindus by Muslim fundamentalists in
Bangladesh. Muslims soon called for her execution for that and other
works. Nasreen went into hiding in India after receiving threats from
Islamic groups.
(AP, 11/28/07)
1995 Feb 4, Patricia Highsmith
(b.1921), American born novelist, died in Switzerland. Her first novel,
“Strangers on a Train” (1950) was made into a 1951 film by Alfred
Hitchcock. In 2009 Joan Schenkar authored “The Talented Miss Highsmith:
The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith.”
(SSFC, 12/13/09,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Highsmith)
1995 Feb 19, Calder Willingham
(b.1922), novelist, scriptwriter (The Graduate), died of lung cancer in
New Hampshire.
(www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1244)
1995 Mar 20, Sidney Kingsley, US
playwright (Pulitzer prize 1934), died.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1995 Apr 27, Willem Frederik
Hermans (b.1921), Dutch author, died. His 1966 novel “Beyond Sleep” was
considered to be one of the founding works of modern Dutch literature.
In 2007 an English translation became available.
(WSJ, 1/7/07,
p.P8)(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Frederik_Hermans)
1995 Jul 21, Elleston Trevor,
author, died.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1995 Oct 22, Sir Kingsley Amis
(73), British novelist and poet, died in London. His 25 novels included
“Lucky Jim” (1954) and “The Green Man” (1969). His work also included
"The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage" and 6 volumes of verse.
In 1998 Eric Jacobs published the biography "Kingsley Amis." In 2000
his son, Martin Amis, authored the memoir: "Experience." In 2007
Zachary Leader authored “The Life of Kingsley Amis.” In 2007 Zachary
Leader authored “The Life of Kingsley Amis.”
(WSJ, 10/23/95, p.A1)(SFEC, 7/19/98, BR p.3)(SFEC,
5/28/00, BR p.1)(AP, 10/22/05)(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.P10)(Econ, 4/21/07,
p.96)
1995 Dec 17, This year's British
Booker Prize in literature was awarded to Pat Barker for "The Ghost
Road," the third novel of a trilogy (1991-1995) that work focused on
psychologist W.H.R. Rivers and poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) set
during WW I.
(www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth15)(WSJ,
10/15/97, p.A21)(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A12)
1995 Monica Furlong (d.2003 at
72), Christian writer and feminist, authored her autobiogra-phy: "Bird
of Paradise."
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
1996 Apr 11, Daniel Wolf (80),
journalist, died.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1996 Apr 18, Piet Hein (80),
architect, poet, mathematician, inventor, died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1996 Apr 23, Pamela Lyndon Travers
(96), Australia born writer (Mary Poppins), died in Lon-don.
(www.maryborough.qld.gov.au/index.aspx?page=678&mid=1)
1996 May 27, David Malouf,
Australian writer, won the $151,000 Int'l. IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
for his novel "Remembering Babylon."
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.B5)
1996 May 28, Eugenia Price,
American writer, died at age 79. She wrote historical novels for women
and her books were translated into 18 languages. Her "Beauty for Ashes"
made the NYT Best Seller List in 1995.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 23, Jessica Mitford (78),
author of "The American Way of Death," died. The 1963 book was an
expose of the funeral industry in the US. Her attorney husband, Robert
Treuhaft, died in 2001. In 2001 Mary S. Lovell authored "The Sisters:
The Saga of the Mitford Family." In 2006 “Decca: The Letters of
Jessica,” edited by Peter Y. Sussman was published.
(SFC, 6/30/96, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 11/12/01, p.A18)(SSFC,
1/6/02, p.M1)(SFC, 11/3/06, p.E9)
1996 Aug 13, Mary Higgins Clark,
suspense writer, signed a 3-book contract with Simon & Schuster for
$3 mil per book.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.B2)
1996 Dec 17, The Russian Booker
Prize for literature, inaugurated in 1992, was awarded to Andrei
Sergeyev for his book "Stamp Album."
(www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/1996/12/17/004.html)
1996 Stephen Ambrose authored
"Undaunted Courage," an account of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
(WSJ, 8/20/01, p.A8)
1996 William Gibson’s novel
"Idoru" was published. It was set in about 2036 and envisioned many
abandoned Web sites.
(WSJ, 3/11/97, p.B1)
1996 John Grisham published "The
Runaway Jury," the highest selling, fiction hardback of the year (2.7
mil copies).
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R22)
1996 "Manual of the Perfect Latin
American Idiot" by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Carlos Alberto Montaner (Cuban
novelist) and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza was published and became a best
seller in Latin America.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A9)
1996 James McBride authored “The
Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother.
(SFC, 2/13/08, p.E5)
1996 The memoir "Angela's Ashes"
by Frank McCourt (1931-2009) was elected the number-one
nonfiction book by Time and Newsweek.
(WSJ, 9/17/99, p.W11)
1996 James Michener wrote "This
Noble Land: My Vision of America."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1996 Patrick O’Brian published his
18th volume of the Aubrey-Maturin series of historical nov-els of
seafaring voyages and extended naval battles of the Napoleonic wars.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, BR p.6)
1996 Sapphire (b.1950), American
performance poet born as Ramona Lofton, authored her best-selling novel
“Push.” In 2009 it was released in the US as a film directed by Lee
Daniels.
(Econ, 11/21/09,
p.87)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precious_%28film%29)
1997 Feb 19, Leo Rosten (88),
writer, humorist (Joys of Yiddish), died.
(www.nndb.com/people/842/000048698/)
1997 Mar 13, In Australia it was
revealed that the 1995 award-winning autobiography of an Aboriginal
woman, "My Own Sweet Time, " was actually written by a 47-year-old
white man in Sidney named Leon Carmen.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A16)
1997 Mar 28, Robert Pinsky (56) of
Boston Univ. was named poet laureate of the United States by the
Library of Congress.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.A7)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg, the
counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laure-ate of the
Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His last book of
poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by Bob
Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan fol-lowing his death. In 2000
Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In
2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The
Selected Interviews, 1958-1996."
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99,
p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.2)
1997 Apr 7, The Pulitzer Prize for
fiction went to Steven Millhauser for "Martin Dressler: The Tale of an
American Dreamer," but no award was given for drama. The Times-Picayune
of New Orleans won two journalism Pulitzers, including the public
service prize, for a series examining how overfishing and pollution are
devastating the oceans.
(AP, 4/7/97)
1997 Apr 11, Michael Dorris (52),
writer, committed suicide.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1997 May 15, Saadallah Wannous,
Syrian playwright, died in Damascus. His plays included "A Night Party
for July 5," "Rituals of Signs and Changes," "The King Is the King,"
and "The Rape," an adoption of a Spanish play that was banned.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A24)
1997 Jun 4, Kurt Adler (91),
therapist, writer, died.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1997 Aug 2, William Burroughs
(1914-1997), writer, the godfather of the beat generation, died of a
heart attack at his home in Lawrence, Ka. His work included "Naked
Lunch" (1959), which was originally banned and published in the US in
1962. He also wrote the books "Junkie" and "Queer."
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.E5)(AP, 8/2/98)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.E7)
1997 Dec 28, James Lees-Milne
(b.1908), British biographer, architectural historian and
wa-tercolorist, died. His work included a biography of British
politician Harold Nicolson. In 2001 Milne’s "Deep Romantic Chasm:
Diaries 1979-1981" was published. The final installment of his diaries,
The Milk of Paradise,” was published in 2006. In 2009 Michael Bloch
authored “James Lees-Milne: The Life.”
(SSFC, 8/12/01, DB p.63)(WSJ, 7/1/06, p.P6)(Econ,
11/21/09, p.86)
1997 Kathy Acker (b.1948),
bad-girl writer, died. In 2002 Amy Scholder and Dennis Cooper edited
"Essential Acker: The Selected Writings of Kathy Acker."
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M4)
1997 Elspeth Huxley (b.1907),
English author, died. Her books included "The Flame Trees of Thika." In
2003 C.S. Nicholls authored "Elspeth Huxley: A Biography."
(SSFC, 8/10/03, p.M2)
1998 Feb 7, Novelist Lawrence
Sanders died at age 78. His debut thriller "The Anderson Tapes"
launched his career, and his 38th book was due later this month.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D8)
1998 Feb 17, Ernst Juenger, German
writer, died at age 102.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.A18)
1998 Apr 14, The Grand Forks
Herald of North Dakota won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of a flood
and fire despite a damaged printing plant. The fiction prize went to
Philip Roth, his first, for "American Pastoral."
(WSJ, 4/15/98, p.A1)(AP, 4/14/99)
1998 Apr 27, Carlos Castaneda
(72), author, died. His 1968 thesis: "The Teachings of Don Juan: A
Yaqui Way of Knowledge," published by the Univ. of Calif. Press (1968),
became an int’l. best seller. In 1997 his ex-wife Margaret Runyan
Castaneda authored "A Magical Journey With Carlos Castaneda." In 2000
Richard DeMille authored "Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the
Allegory." In 2003 Amy Wallace, Castaneda's lover in the 1970s,
authored "The Sor-cerer's Apprentice: My Life With Carlos Castaneda."
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A2)(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.E2)
1998 Jun 5, Alfred Kazin (b.1915),
literary critic, died on his birthday. Kazin’s work included 3
autobiographical volumes: “A Walker in the City,” “Starting Out in the
Thirties,” and “New York Jew.” In 2003 Ted Solotaroff edited
"Alfred Kazin's America: Critical and Personal Writings." In 2007
Richard M. Cook authored “Alfred Kazin: A Biography.”
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.M2)(WSJ, 1/12/08, p.W9)(SFC,
2/7/08, p.E2)
1998 Jul 23, In Colombia Manuel
Mejia Vallejo, novelist, died at age 75. His work included "It was Us,"
"The Marked Day," and "the House of the Two Palms."
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.D5)
1998 Jul 27, Noel Behn (70),
novelist and screenwriter, died in Manhattan. His work included "The
Kremlin Letter," "The Big Stick-Up at Brink’s," and "The Shadowboxer."
(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A19)
1998 Aug 13, Julien Green (97),
the first American to be elected to the Academie Francaise, died in
Paris. The Catholic and homosexual writer produced 18 novels that
included "Moira" and "Each in his Darkness." He also published 14
volumes of journals and 5 volumes of memoirs.
(SFC, 8/18/98, p.A18)
1998 Aug 22, Elena Garro (b.
1920), Mexican novelist, playwright and former wife of Octavio Paz,
died at age 77. Her foremost novel was "Recuerdos del Porvenir"
(Remembrances of the Future).
(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.D4)
1998 Dec 16, William Gaddis,
American writer, died at age 75. His work included "The Rec-ognitions"
(1955) and "A Frolic of His Own." In 2002 his novel "Agapé
Agape" was published along with his essays: "The Rush for Second Place."
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.A1)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.M2)
1998 Tristan Egolf (1972-2005)
authored “Lord of the Barnyard,” a sprawling story of a farm boy’s
misadventures.
(SFC, 5/12/05, p.B6)
1998 Martha Gellhorn (b.1908),
writer and the 3rd wife of Ernest Hemingway (1940), died at age 89. Her
work included the 1978 memoir "Travels With Myself and Another." In
2003 Caro-line Moorhead authored "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life."
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.T4)(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.M1)
1999 Feb 8, Iris Murdoch (b.1919),
Dublin-born novelist, died. Her husband, John Bayley, published "Iris:
A Memoir of Iris Murdoch" in 1998. It was published in the US as "Elegy
for Iris."
(SFC, 2/9/99,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch)
1999 Mar 8, Alice Munro of Canada
won the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction for her
short-story collection "The Love of a Good Woman." Philip Gourevitch
won the nonfiction award for "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We
Will Be Killed With Our Families," a work on the Rwandan genocide.
Sylvia Nassar won the biography award for her work on John Forbes Nash
Jr., Nobel laureate in mathematics. Gary Giddins won the award for
criticism for "Visions of Jazz: The First Century."
(SFC, 3/9/99, p.C2)
1998 Michel Houellebecq authored
“Les Particules Elementaires” (The Elementary Particles), a nihilist
novel that looked at the current era from the year 2079. In it 2 half
brothers served as emblems of 2 self-destructive tendencies in modern
life: radical individual autonomy and tech-nological perfection. It
created a literary scandal in France and was denounced as racist,
fas-cist, sexist, and homophobic. An English translation came out in
2000.
(WSJ, 11/15/00, p.A24)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.87)(WSJ,
5/27/06, p.P8)
1998 Louis Sachar authored
"Holes," a novel about kids in prison in Texas. It was made into a film
in 2003.
(SFC, 5/5/03, p.D1)
1999 Jan 11, Brian Moore (59),
Irish born writer, died in California. His books included the novel
“Catholics” (1973).
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/253500.stm)
1999 Apr 13, In Chile Alejandra
Matus, author, launched her new book "The Black Book of Chilean
Justice." Police confiscated the books the next day and Matus fled the
country to Ar-gentina.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A26)
1999 Apr 14, The Pulitzer Prize in
literature went to Michael Cunningham for his novel "The Hours."
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.W15)
1999 Jun 19, Mario Soldati
(b.1906), Italian writer and film director, died at age 92. He started
publishing novels in 1929 although his fame came with “America primo
amore” (1935), a diary about the time he spent teaching at Columbia
University. He won literary awards for the work.
(SFC, 6/24/99,
p.A25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Soldati)
1999 Jul 2, Mario Puzo, author of
"The Godfather," died on Long Island at age 78. His last book,
"Omerta," was scheduled for publication in 2000.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A21)
1999 Breyten Breytenbach,
Afrikaner writer, authored "Dog Heart: A Memoir," a look at South
Africa since the 1994 elections.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A40)
1999 Nadine Gordimer, South Africa
writer, authored "Living in Hope and History: Notes from Our Century."
(SFEC, 12/12/99, BR p.5)
1999 Elizabeth Sparrow authored
“Secret Service: British Agents in France: 1792-1815.”
(WSJ, 12/9/06, p.P12)
2000 Jan 2, Patrick O'Brian, (born
in England as Richard Patrick Russ), celebrated novelist, died at age
85 in Ireland while writing his 21st novel set during the Napoleonic
wars. His 1st Aubrey and Maturin novel was "Master and Commander,"
begun in 1969 was published in 1970. His first novel was "The Golden
Ocean" written in 1956.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A19)(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.W15)
2000 Mar 8, In Italy Harold
Bloom’s new book "How To Read and Why" was published. The American
version came out in April. His other 24 books included "The Western
Canon."
(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)
2000 Mar 28, Prof. Adam B. Ulam of
Harvard Univ., died at age 77. His 18 books included "Stalin: The Man
and His Era" (1973).
(SFC, 4/1/00, p.A26)
2000 Apr 4, Ha Jin, Prof. of
English at Emory Univ. won the PEN/Faulkner Prize for His novel
"Waiting." Jin had arrived in the US from China in 1985.
(SFC, 4/5/00, p.C3)
2000 Apr 10, David M. Kennedy won
a Pulitzer prize for "Freedom From Fear: The American People in
Depression and War, 1929-1945." Jhumpa Lahiri won the fiction award for
"Inter-preter of Maladies." The Washington Post won three Pulitzer
Prizes, including the public service award for the second year in a
row; The Wall Street Journal took two honors, and The Associ-ated Press
won for investigative reporting on the killing of civilians by US
troops at the start of the Korean War.
(SFC, 4/11/00, p.A2)(AP, 4/10/01)
2000 Apr 13, Giorgio Bassani,
Italian author, died at age 84. His books included "The Garden of the
Finzi-Continis."
(SFC, 4/14/00, p.D5)
2000 May 21, In Britain Dame
Barbara Cartland (98), author of 723 romance novels, died.
(SFC, 5/22/00, p.A14)
2000 Jul 21, Marc Reisner, author
of "Cadillac Desert," died in Marin, Ca., at age 51. His 1986 book was
an angry indictment of water depletion in the American West.
(SFC, 7/24/00, p.A21)
2000 Jul 31, William Maxwell
(b.1908) novelist and editor for the New Yorker, died in NYC. In 2008
the Library of America published a 2-volume edition of his fiction.
(WSJ, 9/5/08,
p.W6)(www.answers.com/topic/maxwell-william-keepers-jr)
2000 JT Leroy authored his 1st
book “Sarah. The narrator, a 12-year-old boy, has renamed himself Sarah
after his whorish mother because he has learned from her example that
"Most anything you want in this world is easier when you're a pretty
girl." In 2005 it was revealed that the author was a fake identity
created by SF residents Laura Albert, her husband Geoffrey Knoop and
Geoffrey’s sister Savannah. In 2006 Knoop acknowledged that Laura
Albert wrote “Sarah,“ and followed up in 2001 with “The heart Is
Deceitful Above All Things.”
(http://tinyurl.com/cqvnn)(SFC, 1/10/06, p.A8)(SFC,
2/7/06, p.A3)
2001 Mar 12, Robert Ludlum (73),
suspense novelist, died in Naples, Fla. His books included "The
Scarlatti Inheritance," "The Chancellor Manuscript," the Bourne
trilogy, "The Matlock Pa-per," "Trevayne" and others.
(SFC, 3/13/01, p.A25)(AP, 3/12/02)
2001 Apr 16, The Oregonian of
Portland won two Pulitzer Prizes, including public service for its
examination of widespread abuses by the Immigration and Naturalization
Service. In break-ing news reporting, The Miami Herald won for its
coverage of the pre-dawn raid by federal agents who took custody of
Elian Gonzalez; the story also produced the breaking news photog-raphy
award for Alan Diaz of The Associated Press. Michael Chabon won the
Pulitzer Prize for his novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and
Clay"; David Auburn won for his play "Proof."
(SFC, 4/17/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/17/01, p.A1)(AP, 4/16/02)
2001 May 11, Douglas Adams
(b.1952), English author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gal-axy,"
died in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was buried at London’s Highgate
Cemetery.
(AP, 5/11/02)(AP, 9/29/09)
2001 Jul 3, Mordecai Richler,
Canadian social critic and novelist, died at age 70. His work in-cluded
the novel "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (1959).
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.D3)
2001 Jul 23, Eudora Welty
(b.1909), Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, died in Jackson, Miss. Her
work included the 1941 collection "A Curtain of Green and Other
Stories" and the 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning "The Optimist’s Daughter."
In 1998 Ann Waldron authored the biography “Eu-dora” against the
writer’s wishes. In 2005 Suzanne Marrs authored the biography “Eudora
Welty.”
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A17)(WSJ,
8/5/05, p.W6)
2001 Jul 31, Poul Anderson,
science fiction writer, died at age 74.
(WSJ, 8/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 1, Robert Henry Rimmer,
author of the 1960s novel "The Harrad Experiment," died at age 84.
(SFC, 8/11/01, p.A17)
2001 Aug 6, Jorge Amado (b.1912),
author of 32 novels, died at age 88. He was considered Brazil’s
greatest contemporary writer.
(SFC, 8/9/01,
p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Amado)
2001 Aug 13, Elizabeth Cavanna
Harrison (aka Betsy Allen or Elizabeth Headley), American romance
writer, died in France at age 92. Her over 80 romances included "Going
on Sixteen" (1945), and "Spice Island Mystery" 1970.
(SFC, 8/14/01, p.A18)
2001 Aug 23, Peter Maas, novelist
and non-fiction writer, died at age 72. His work included "The Valachi
Papers" (1969), "Serpico," "The King of Gypsies," and "Underboss: Sammy
the Bull Gravano’s Story of Life in the Mafia."
(SFC, 8/24/01, p.D7)
2001 Nov 10, Ken Kesey (b.1935),
author, died in Eugene, Oregon. His books included "One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest" (1962) and "Sometimes a Great Notion" (1964).
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A1)(NW, 12/31/01, p.109)
2001 Dec 14, W.G. Sebald (b.1944),
German-born British author, died in a car accident. His books included
"The Emigrants" (1996) and "The Rings of Saturn" (1998). His novel
"Austerlitz" (2001) had just recently been awarded The National Books
Critics Award for 2002.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.M4)(SFC, 3/12/02, p.A2)
2001 Manu Herbstein (b.1936), a
South African resident of Ghana, authored “Ama: A Story of the Atlantic
Slave Trade.”
(www.nathanielturner.com/amastoryofatlanticslavetrade.htm)
2001 Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian
writer, authored “The Feast of the Goat,” a portrayal of the last days
of the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic.
(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
2001 Ian McEwan, a British writer,
authored his novel “Atonement.” In 2007 it was made into a film
starring James McAvoy and directed by Joe Wright.
(SFC, 12/4/07, p.E1)
2001 Carlos Ruiz Zafon authored
“The Shadow of the Wind.” It became a best seller in Spain and in 2004
was translated into English by Lucia Graves.
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.87)
2001 Dare Wright (b.1914), author,
died. He books included “The Lonely Doll.“ In 2004 Jean Wright authored
“The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll.“
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.M1)
2002 Mar 11, The National Book
Critics Circle (f.1974) awarded top honors to W.G. Sebald (d.2001) for
his novel "Austerlitz." Nicholson Baker won the nonfiction category for
"Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper." Martin Amis
won the criticism category for "The War Against Cliché." Albert
Goldbarth won the poetry category for "Saving Lives." Adam Sisman won
the biography category for "Boswell’s Presumptuous Task: The Making of
the Life of Dr. Johnson."
(SFC, 3/12/02, p.A2)
2002 Apr 8, The Pulitzer Prizes
were announced. Arts winners included Louis Menand in his-tory for "The
Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America," David McCullough for
his biogra-phy "John Adams," and composer Henry Bryant (88) for "Ice
Field."
(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A2)
2002 Apr 15, Damon Knight (79),
science fiction writer and editor, died in Eugene. His work included
"The Futurians" (1977), a memoir of a group of budding writers that
included Asimov, Wollheim, Pohl and himself. His 1950 story "To Serve
Man" was made into a Twilight Zone epi-sode in 1962.
(SFC, 4/19/02, p.A27)
2002 May 20, Steven Jay Gould
(60), polymath, paleontologist and writer, died of cancer in NYC. He
and Niles Eldredge were proponents of the theory of punctuated
evolution, an update on Darwin’s theory of evolution. His books
included "The Mismeasure of Man" (1988). His book "The Hedgehog, the
Fox and the Magister’s Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the
Humanities" was published posthumously in 2003.
(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A6)(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.M1)
2002 May 28, Mildred Wirt Benson
(96), newspaperwoman and creator of the "Nancy Drew" children's mystery
stories (1930), died in Toledo, Ohio. She wrote under the direction of
Edward Stratemeyer and used the pen name Carolyn Keene.
(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.A13)(AP,
5/28/03)(http://tinyurl.com/e39rt)
2002 Jun 11, Quincy Troupe (62),
prof. of creative writing at UC San Diego, was named Cali-fornia state
poet laureate. Troupe resigned Oct 18 after he acknowledged that he
lied in his re-sume about graduating from college.
(SFC, 6/12/02, p.D5)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.A14)
2002 Jul 23, Chaim Potok (73),
rabbi and author of novels that included "The Chosen," died at his home
in suburban Philadelphia. "Literature presents you with alternative
mappings of the human experience."
(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 23, William Pierce
(d.2002), white supremacist author of the 1978 "Turner Diaries," died
in Hillsboro, West Virginia.
(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 5, Winifred Watson (95),
a popular writer of the 1930s who found a new readership in the 21st
century, died in England. His work included the humorous and
risqué novel "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" (1938).
(AP, 8/14/02)
2002 Aug 27, Stanley R. Greenberg
(74), writer, died. His work included over 40 plays for stage, film and
TV including the screenplay for the 1973 film "Soylent Green."
(SFC, 8/28/02, p.A19)(MoTV, 1977, p.667)
2002 Sep 2, Jerry Boyd (b.1930),
boxing trainer and author (pen name F.X. Toole), died. Two of his short
stories were adopted for the 2004 film “Million Dollar Baby.”
(SSFC, 8/6/06,
p.M1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.X._Toole)
2002 Oct 3, Wu-chi Liu (95),
China-born scholar, died in Menlo Park, Ca. His books included "A Short
History of Confucian Philosophy" and "An Introduction to Chinese
Literature." He was also the senior editor of "Sunflower Splendor," an
anthology that encompassed 3,000 years of Chinese poetry in translation.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A26)
2002 Oct 31/Nov 1, Inmates at San
Quentin performed the verse drama "John Brown’s Body" by Stephen
Vincent Benet under the direction of Joseph De Francesca.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.D1)(EW)
2002 Nov 4, Jerry Sohl (88),
science fiction author, died in Thousand Oaks, California. His books
included "The Transcendent Man" and "The Altered Ego."
(SFC, 11/11/02, p.A20)
2002 Nov 24, Harriet Doerr
(b.1910), author of "Stone for Ibarra" (1984), died in Pasadena.
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.A30)
2002 Dec 21, In Spain Jose Hierro
(80), a poet who won the Spanish-speaking world's high-est literary
award while writing in a Madrid coffee shop, died.
(AP, 12/21/02)
2002 David L. Ulin edited "Writing
Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology."
(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.M1)
2002 Michael Crichton authored
"Prey," an novel that portrayed a mayhem of nanotechnology mixed with
biotechnology.
(WSJ, 11/22/02, p.W10)
2002 Carlos Fuentes published his
novel “La silla del aguila,” in Mexico. In 2006 an English translation
by Kristina Cordero was published as “The Eagle’s Throne.”
(SSFC, 5/27/06, p.M1)
2002 Caroline Knapp (42), author
of "Drinking: A Love Story" (1996), died. In 2003 her book "Appetites:
Why Women Want," was published.
(SSFC, 5/18/03, p.M1)
2002 China banned the novel "K:
The Art of Love" by Chen Hongying following a lawsuit by a British
woman who said the book insulted her late parents. The book was based
on letters and journals of Julian Bell (d.1937), a nephew of Virginia
Woolf, and his affair with poet named Lin.
(SFC, 12/13/02, p.K2)
2003 Jan 3, Jose Maria Gironella
(85), Spanish author, died. His work included "The Cy-presses Believe
in God," a trilogy based on the 1936-1939 Civil War, for which he won
the 1953 National Literary prize.
(SFC, 2/10/03, p.B5)
2003 Jan 29, Leslie Fiedler (85),
author and literary critic, died in Buffalo, NY. His 1960 "Love and
Death in the American Novel" analyzed the work of mark Twain, Ernest
Hemingway and others.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A26)
2003 Feb 8, Augusto Monterosso
(81), Honduras-born Guatemalan writer, died in Mexico City. His work
included "Perpetual Movement" (1972); "The Letter E: Fragments of a
Diary" (1987); and "The Magic Word" (1983).
(SFC, 2/10/03, p.B5)
2003 Feb 23, Robert K. Merton
(b.1910), writer and sociologist, died. In 1965 he authored “On the
Shoulders of Giants” (OTSOG), wherein he traced the eponymous title,
usually attributed to Isaac Newton, to Bernard of Chartres in about
1130. [see 1159]
(www.asanet.org/footnotes/mar03/indextwo.html)
2003 Feb 26, The National
Book Critics Circle for general nonfiction went to Samantha Power for
"A Problem from Hell: American and the Age of Genocide."
(SFC, 2/27/03, A2)
2003 Mar 8, Michael Moore
won best original screenplay for "Bowling for Columbine" in the 55th
annual Writer’s Guild Awards.
(SFC, 3/10/03, p.D2)
2003 Mar 12, Howard Fast (b.1914),
historical fiction author, died in Old. Greenwich, Conn. His books
included "Citizen Tom Paine" (1943), "Freedom Road" (1944), "Spartacus"
(1953) and "The Naked God" (1957).
(SFC, 3/13/03, p.A21)
2003 Mar 14, Amanda Davis (32),
writing professor at Mills College in Oakland, Ca., was killed in a
small plane crash near Ashville, NC, along with her parents. She was on
a book sign-ing tour for her novel "Wonder When You’ll Miss Me."
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.D4)
2003 Mar 10, Carolyn Doty
(b.1941), novelist and prof. of English at U. of Kansas, died. Her 4
novels included "A Day Later" (1980). "She managed to peer into corners
of human behaviour that others overlooked."
(SFC, 3/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Jun 21, Leon Uris (78),
author, died on New York's Shelter Island. His books included "Battle
Cry" (1953), the best-selling "Exodus" (1958) and "Mila 18" (1960).
(AP, 6/24/03)(SFC, 6/25/03, p.A25)
2003 Jul 8, Antonis Samarakis
(84), Greek writer and children's rights activist, died. His books
included the novel "Mistake" (1965).
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A17)
2003 Jul 9, Winston Graham (93),
author of the hugely popular Poldark novels, died in Sus-sex, England.
His other novels included "Marnie" (1961).
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 15, Roberto Bolano
(b.1953), Chilean author, died in Spain. His novel “2666” was published
posthumously in 2006. In 2007 his novel “The Savage Detectives” (1998)
was made available in English.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc3/roberto_bola%C3%B1o)(SSFC, 4/1/07, p.M1)
2003 Jul 16, Carol Shields (68),
the Pulitzer-prize winning author who wrote "The Stone Dia-ries" (1995)
and more than 20 other books, died at her home in Victoria, British
Columbia.
(AP, 7/17/03)(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A29)
2003 Aug 4, Brazilian novelist
Rubem Fonseca (b.1925) won Mexico's prestigious Juan Rulfo Prize for
literature.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 23, Marion Hargrove (83),
American writer, died in Long Beach, Calif. She was noted for the
bestselling World War II comedy novel “See Here, Private Hargrove,”
which was made into a 1944 movie with Robert Walker as Hargrove and
Donna Reed as his love interest.
(AP,
8/30/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Hargrove)
2003 Aug 24, Sir Wilfred
Thesiger (93), writer, explorer and chronicler of the world's
vanish-ing ways of life, died. Thesiger's most famous books were
"Arabian Sands," about his travels with the Bedu people across the
Empty Quarter of southern Arabia in the 1940s, and "The Marsh Arabs,"
the story of the Shiite marsh dwellers of southern Iraq.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Sep 4, Mario Monteforte
Toledo, Guatemalan writer and activist, died. His work included the
1952 novel "En Donde Acaban los Caminos" (Where the Roads End).
(SFC, 9/5/03, p.A23)
2003 Sep 25, George Plimpton
(b.1927), writer and participatory journalist, died in NYC at age 76.
He helped found the Paris Review in 1953. His books included "Paper
Lion" (1966).
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A2)
2003 Sep 25, Edward Said (67),
Palestinian American journalist, critic and author, died. His books
included "Orientalism" and "Culture and Imperialism."
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.E9)(Econ, 10/4/03, p.84)
2003 Oct 29, Harry Clement Stubbs
(81), science fiction writer, died. His books included "Mis-sion of
Gravity" (1953).
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.A21)
2003 Oct, Vol. 1 of Osamu Tezuka's
"Buddha" series was published in the US. The 8-volume epic was about
the life and times of Siddartha.
(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.F1)
2003 Nov 15, Mohamed Choukri (68),
a Moroccan writer whose tales about his experiences with drugs and
homosexuality were banned at home, died in Tangiers. His best-known
work, "For Bread Alone" (1981), was published in Paris and told
of his difficult adolescence.
(AP, 11/16/03)
2003 Dec 11, Ahmadou Kourouma,
Ivorian writer, died. His 5th novel, incomplete, was pub-lished in
French in 2004.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.76)
2003 Dec 18, Charles Berlitz (90),
linguist and author, died in Florida. His books included "The Bermuda
Triangle" (1974), and "Native Tongues," a compendium of language
history.
(SFC, 1/5/04, p.B5)
2003 Dec 27, Juan Garcia Ponce
(71), a renowned Mexican art critic, translator and prize-winning
novelist, died. Ponce was born in Merida, the capital of Yucatan state,
on Sept. 22, 1932. The author of at least 50 books, Ponce wrote novels,
plays, screenplays and essays and was considered a master of erotic
literature.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 30, John Gregory Dunne
(b.1932), author, screenwriter and husband of Joan Did-ion, died in
NYC. His novels included "True Confessions" (1977).
(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A23)
2003 Dan Brown authored the
best-seller thriller novel "The Da Vinci Code." The story held that
Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter; that the
Bible was put to-gether by a 4th century emperor with a thing against
women; and that the Catholic Church is a criminal conspiracy.
(SFC, 8/30/03, p.D1)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.34)
2003 Paul Elie authored "The Life
You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage." It was a group
biography of Doris Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor and Walker
Percy.
(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.M3)
2003 The purported memoir “A
Million Little Pieces” by James Frey was published. In 2005 it was
endorsed by Oprah Winfrey and became a best seller. In 2006 Frey
acknowledged that much of the book was falsified.
(SFC, 1/27/06, p.A2)
2003 DBC Pierre won the 2003
Booker Prize for his novel "Vernon God Little."
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.M3)
2003 Vikas Swarup, Indian
diplomat, authored his novel “Q&A” while in London. The novel was
turned into the successful film “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008).
(Econ, 1/31/09, p.90)
2004 Jan 15, Olivia Goldsmith
(54), author of "The First Wives Club" (1992), died in NYC of
complications from plastic surgery. Her book became a revenge fantasy
for wives tossed aside in favor of younger women. It became a No. 1
film in 1996 starring Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler.
(AP, 1/16/04)(SFC, 1/17/04, p.A17)
2004 Jan 29, Janet Frame (b.1924),
author, died in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her 3-volume autobiography was
dramatized in the 1990 film "An Angel at My Table."
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 27, Robert Merle (95),
French author, died. His books included "The Day of the Dol-phin,"
which was made into a 1973 film.
(SFC, 4/1/04, p.B7)
2004 Mar 29, Margaret McCord Nixon
(87), South-African-born author of "The Calling of Katie Makanya"
(1997), died in Venice, Ca.
(SFC, 4/13/04, p.B7)
2004 Mar 30, Alistair Cooke
(b.1908), television host and author, died in NYC at age 95. His books
included "Alistair Cooke's America" (1972).
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.89)
2004 Apr 26, Denis Hills (90), the
writer sentenced to death by Idi Amin for describing the Ugandan
dictator as a "black Nero" and "village tyrant," died in southern
England.
(AP, 5/1/04)
2004 Apr 26, Hubert Selby Jr.
(b.1928), author of "Last Exit to Brooklyn," died in LA.
(SFC, 4/27/04, p.B7)
2004 Jun 17, Tahar Ben Jelloun
(59), a Moroccan-born novelist and poet, won the Int’l. IM-PAC Dublin
Literary Award for the best work of English fiction for 2002. Linda
Coverdale, trans-lator of “This Blinding Absence of Light,” received a
quarter of the $120,000 prize.
(SFC, 6/18/04, p.E2)
2004 Aug 11, Ngugi wa Thiongo
(b.1938), exiled Kenyan writer, was accosted by assailants during a
return trip to Nairobi. His face was burned with cigarettes and his
wife was raped.
(Econ, 8/19/06,
p.70)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngugi_wa_Thiongo)
2004 Sep 23, Nigel Nicolson (87),
English writer and publisher, died. His mother was Vita Sackville-West.
(Econ, 10/2/04, p.87)
2004 Sep 24, French author
Francoise Sagan (69), who shot to fame with her first novel "Bonjour
Tristesse" (1954) at the age of 18 and courted controversy throughout
her life, died. She was a longstanding friend of late President
Francois Mitterrand and was convicted of taking drugs and for tax
evasion.
(Reuters, 9/24/04)(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.B5)
2004 Oct 19, Britain’s Man Booker
Prize and a $90,000 check was awarded to Alan Holl-inghurst for his
novel “The Line of Beauty.”
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.E2)(SSFC, 10/31/04, p.M1)
2004 Nov 9, Iris Chang (b.1968),
author of the 1997 book "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgot-ten Holocaust
of WW II," died by suicide in California. In 2007 Paula Kamen authored
“Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition and the Loss of an
Extraordinary Mind.”
(Econ, 11/27/04, p.91)(SFCM, 4/17/05, p.5)(SSFC,
11/11/07, p.M1)
2004 Nov 9, Stieg Larsson
(b.1954), Swedish novelist, died of a heart attack. By 2009 his “The
Millennium Trilogy,” published posthumously, had sold more than 12
million copies around the world. The books centered on the heroine
Lisbeth Salander, a tattooed bisexual waif with autistic tendencies, a
profound distrust of authority, as well as astonishing computer skills
and physical courage.
(Econ, 10/31/09,
p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieg_Larsson)
2004 Nov 24, Arthur Hailey
(b.1920), author of the 1968 novel “Airport,” died in the Bahamas.
(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
2004 Dec 26, John Kimbro (75),
gothic novelist, died in SF. His more than 40 books included the series
“Saga of the Phenwick Women.”
(SFC, 1/4/05, p.B5)
2004 Gabriel Garcia Marquez
authored his novel “Memoria de mis Putas Tristes” (A Memoir of My Sad
Whores.”
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.85)
2005 Feb 10, Arthur Miller
(b.1915), the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, died. His most fa-mous
fictional creation, Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman" (1949), came
to symbolize the American Dream gone awry.
(AP, 2/11/05)(SFC, 2/12/05, p.A12)(Econ, 2/19/05,
p.84)
2005 Feb 20, Hunter S. Thompson
(b.1937), gonzo journalist, committed suicide in Aspen, Colo. The
hard-living writer inserted himself into his accounts of America's
underbelly and popu-larized a first-person form of journalism in books
such as “The Rum Diary” (1998) and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
(1972).
(AP, 2/21/05)(SFC, 2/21/05, p.A8)(Econ, 2/26/05,
p.86)
2005 Apr 5, Saul Bellow (89),
Nobel winning novelist, died in Brookline, Mass. His books in-cluded
“The Dangling Man” (1944), “Herzog” (1964), and “Ravelstein” (2000).
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A1)(Econ, 4/16/05, p.76)
2005 Jul 16, J.K. Rawling’s latest
book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the 6th of the series,
went on sale.
(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 31, Orhan Pamuk, a
Turkish novelist, was charged with insulting his country's na-tional
character and could face prison. In February Pamuk was quoted as saying
in an interview with a Swiss newspaper magazine: "Thirty-thousand Kurds
and one million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me
dares to talk about it."
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Sep, The novel “The Girls of
Riyadh” by Rajaa al-Sanie (23) was published in Lebanon. Only pirated
copies were available in Saudi Arabia. Rajaa Alsanea wrote the novel as
a series of anonymous e-mails about the protagonists. In 2007 the book
became available in English.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.A29)(WSJ, 6/29/07, p.W2)
2005 Nov 5, John Fowles (b.1926),
English novelist, died at his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset. His books
included "The Collector" (1963), “The Magus” (1965) and “The French
Lieutenant's Woman” (1969). Volume I of his journals (1949-1965) was
published in May. Volume II (1966-1990) was published in 2006.
(SFC, 11/8/05, p.B5)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.92)(SSFC,
10/29/06, p.M1)
2005 Dec 16, In Turkey a trial
against novelist Orhan Pamuk opened in Istanbul. It was then adjourned
to February. Charges were dropped on Jan 23.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.71)
2005 Stephenie Meyer (b.1973),
American novelist, authored the first of her vampire romance series
“Twilight.” By 2009 the series consisted of 4 books, of which two were
made into movies.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephenie_Meyer)
2005 Orhan Pamuk authored
“Istanbul,” a personal memoir and cultural history of the city.
(Econ, 4/9/05, p.71)
2006 Jan 23, A Turkish court
dropped charges against Orhan Pamuk, the country's best-known novelist,
for insulting "Turkishness," ending a high-profile trial that outraged
Western ob-servers and cast doubt on Turkey's commitment to free
speech. He had been charged under articles 301 and 305 of the penal
code.
(AP, 1/23/06)(Econ, 1/28/06, p.50)
2006 Feb 11, Peter Benchley (65),
"Jaws" author, died in Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2006 Feb 24, Octavia Butler
(b.1947), African-American sci-fi writer, died in Seattle. Her 12 books
included “Kindred” (1979).
(SFC, 3/2/06,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_Butler)
2006 Apr 13, Dame Muriel Spark
(b.1918) died in Tuscany, Italy. Her spare and humorous novels made her
one of the most admired British writers of the post World War II years.
Her work of 23 novels, included the autobiographical "The Prime of Miss
Jean Brodie" (1961), which was later adapted for a Broadway hit (1966)
and a movie.
(AP, 4/15/06)(Econ, 4/22/06, p.83)
2006 Jan 28, Maurice Lever
(b.1935), French writer, died in Paris of cancer. His work included a
biography of Marquis de Sade (1994), “Bloody Rumors” (1993), a history
of violent news sto-ries, and “Scepter and Bauble” (1909), a history of
court jesters.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.E2)(www.imdb.com/name/nm1927840/bio)
2006 Jul 10, Fred Wander (b.1917),
writer and Holocaust survivor, died in Vienna. His 1970 novel, “The
Seventh Well,” describes his survival. The German edition was
translated to English in 2007.
(SFC, 12/11/07,
p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wander)
2006 Jul 17, Mickey Spillane
(b.1918), American mystery writer, died in South Carolina. His 13 Mike
Hammer novels began with “I, the Jury” (1946). A number of his books
were made into films including “The Girl Hunters” in which he played
the starring role.
(SFC, 7/18/06, p.B5)
2006 Jul 28, David Gemmell
(b.1948), British writer of fantasy novels, died. He wrote over 30
novels.
(WSJ, 1/23/08,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gemmell)
2006 Aug 11, German novelist
Guenter Grass (78) admitted in an interview that he served in the
Waffen SS, the combat arm of Adolf Hitler's dreaded paramilitary
forces, during World War II. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1999 for works including his 1959 novel, "The Tin Drum." His new memoir
about the war years, Peeling the Onion” was published in September,
2006. The English translation came out in 2007.
(AP, 8/11/06)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.M1)
2006 Aug 30, Naguib Mahfouz (94),
Arab writer, died in Cairo. He became the first Arab writer to win the
Nobel Prize in Literature (1988) for his novels depicting modern
Egyptian life. Across the span of 34 novels, hundreds of short stories
and essays, dozens of movie scripts and five plays, Mahfouz depicted
with startling realism the Egyptian "Everyman" balancing between
tra-dition and the modern world.
(AP, 8/30/06)
2006 Sep 9, Elisabeth Ogilvie
(89), writer, died at her home in Cushing, Maine. Her 46 books included
the Tide trilogy, which centered on the Bennet family and
lobster-trapping life.
(SFC, 9/15/06, p.B9)
2006 Sep 30, André
Schwarz-Bart (b.1928), French novelist of Polish-Jewish origins, died
in Guadeloupe. His books included the novel “The Last of the Just”
(1960), based on the Jewish teaching that the fate of the world lies
with 36 just men.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Schwarz-Bart)(WSJ, 12/9/06, p.P12)
2006 Oct 10, Britain’s Man Booker
Prize was won by Indian writer Kiran Desai (35) for “The Inheritance of
Loss,” a cross-continental saga that moves from the Himalayas to NYC.
(SFC, 10/11/06, p.A16)
2006 Oct 12, Turkish novelist
Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel literature prize for his works deal-ing with
the symbols of clashing cultures. His uncommon lyrical gifts and
uncompromising poli-tics have brought him acclaim worldwide and
prosecution at home.
(AP, 10/12/06)
2006 Nov 1, William Styron (81),
novelist from the American South, died in Massachusetts. His books
included “The Confessions of Nat Turner” (1967) and “Sophie’s Choice”
(1979).
(SFC, 11/2/06, p.B7)
2006 Nov 4, Ernestine Gilbreth
Carey (98), co-author of "Cheaper by the Dozen," died in Fresno, Calif.
(AP, 11/4/07)
2006 Nov 27, Bebe Moore Campbell
(56), novelist, died of cancer in Los Angeles. Her novels centered on
race relations and included “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine” (1992), which
was rooted in the (1955) murder of Emmett Till.
(SFC, 11/28/06, p.B7)
2006 Dec 16, John Rae (b.1931),
English novelist and educator, died. In 2009 his diaries were published
under the title: “The Old Boys’ Network: A Headmaster’s Diaries
1970-1986.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rae_(educator))(Econ, 4/25/09, p.87)
2006 Dave Eggers authored “What Is
the What: The Autobiography of Achak Deng.” Deng, a Sudanese “lost
boy,” managed to escape to Ethiopia and work his way to Kenya and
ultimately America in 2001. Eggers’ novel is based on interviews with
Deng.
(SSFC, 12/24/06, p.M1)
2007 Jan 23, Ryszard Kapuscinski
(b.1932), Belarus-born Polish writer and journalist, died following
heart surgery. He gained international acclaim for his books
chronicling wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, the Middle East and
other parts of the world. His books included "The Emperor" (1978), a
chronicle of the decline of Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia. In
1981 he published "Shah of Shahs," a book about the 1979 Islamic
revolution that toppled Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His last
book “Travels With Herodotus” was published shortly after his death.
(AP, 1/24/07)(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.M1)
2007 Jan 24, Jean-Francois Deniau
(b.1928), a former French government minister, diplomat, sailor and
novelist, died. His novel "Un Hero Tres Discret" (A Very Discreet Hero)
told of an or-dinary man who reinvented himself as a hero of the World
War II Resistance. The book was adapted into a movie by director
Jacques Audiard and given the English-language title "A Self Made Hero."
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 30, Sidney Sheldon (89),
American writer, died. He won awards in three careers, Broadway
theater, movies and television, then at age 50 turned to writing
best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world
of ruthless men.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Feb 22, Lothar-Guenther
Buchheim (89), the German author and art collector best known for his
1973 autobiographical novel, "Das Boot," died. In 1981, the book was
turned into an acclaimed German film starring Juergen Prochnow that
detailed the hopelessness of war and its effect on sailors living in
the cramped confines of their submarine.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Mar 2, Henri Troyat (95),
French writer, died. He fled Russia's revolution as a child and went on
to become one of France's most prolific, popular and respected authors.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Apr 11, Kurt Vonnegut
(b.1922), regarded by many critics as a key influence in shaping
20th-century American literature, died in NYC. He mixed the bitter and
funny with a touch of the profound in books such as
"Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle," and "Hocus Pocus." In 2009 Loree
Rackstraw, a former student, authored “Love as Always, Kurt: Vonnegut
As I Knew Him.”
(AP, 4/12/07)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.98)(WSJ, 3/16/09,
p.A17)
2007 May 30, Mark Harris (b.1922
as Mark Harris Finkelstein), American author, died in Go-leta, Ca. His
13 novels and 5 nonfiction books included “Bang The Drum Slowly”
(1956), a baseball novel that he adopted for the 1973 movie of the same
name.
(SFC, 6/1/07, p.B9)
2007 Jun 6, Nigeria's Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie won Britain's Orange Prize for fiction by women for her
book “Half of a Yellow Sun,” becoming the first African to take the
award in its 12-year history.
(AP, 6/6/07)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.54)
2007 Jun 13, In London Chinua
Achebe (76), a Nigerian novelist, won the Booker Int’l. Prize for
fiction, awarded every 2 years for a body of fiction. He is best known
for his 1st book “Things Fall Apart” (1958).
(SFC, 6/13/07, p.E5)
2007 Jul 6, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
(b.1939), author of steamy genre novels, died in Prince-ton, Minn. She
was widely credited with having founded the historical romance in its
modern carnal incarnation. “The Flame and the Flower” (1972) was the
1st of her 13 novels.
(SFC, 7/13/07, p.B8)
2007 Jul 21, The protracted
suspense finally lifted for Harry Potter fans who flooded book-shops
worldwide to grab the series finale, "Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows," and find out whether author J.K. Rowling slays or spares the
boy wizard.
(AFP, 7/21/07)(AP, 7/21/08)
2007 Milan Kundera (b.1929),
Czechoslovakia born writer, authored “The Curtain: An Essay in Seven
Parts,” an extended essay on the art of the novel.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.83)
2007 Sep 6, Madeleine L’Engle
(b.1918), author, died in Litchfield, Conn. Her more than 60 books
included “A Wrinkle in Time” (1962), winner of the 1963 Newberry Medal
for best Ameri-can children’s book.
(SFC, 9/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Oct 16, Anne Enright, Irish
author, won the Man Booker prize for her novel “The Gather-ing.”
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.A2)
2007 Nov 7, A novel by a former
radio broadcaster in Canada's north won the 2007 Scotia-bank Giller
Prize, Canada's most lucrative and prestigious prize for fiction.
Elizabeth Hay's "Late Nights on Air" details the loves and rivalries of
a cast of eccentric characters at a small radio station in Yellowknife,
near Canada's Arctic.
(Reuters, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 10, Norman Mailer (84),
writer, died. The macho prince of American letters reigned for decades
as the country's literary conscience and provocateur with such books as
"The Na-ked and the Dead" (1948) and "The Executioner's Song" (1979).
(AP, 11/10/07)(SSFC, 11/11/07, p.A7)
2007 Nov 12, Ira Levin (78),
author, died in Manhattan. His work included the best-selling hor-ror
and suspense novels "Rosemary's Baby" (1967), "The Stepford Wives"
(1972), and "The Boys from Brazil" (1976), all later made into popular
films. Levin also wrote for the stage, includ-ing "No Time for
Sergeants," starring a young Andy Griffith, and the long-running
"Deathtrap." Both were later adapted to the screen.
(Reuters, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 27, Jane Rule,
American-born Canadian writer, died at her home on Galiano Island in
British Columbia. Her 1964 novel, “Desert of the Heart,” is considered
a landmark work of lesbian fiction.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.C5)
2007 Dec 22, French author Julien
Gracq (97), one of the last links with the pre-World War II Surrealist
movement, died.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2008 Jan 2, George MacDonald
Fraser (82), English author of the "Flashman" series of his-torical
adventure yarns, died. "Flashman," published in 1969, introduced
readers to an enduring literary antihero: the roguish, irrepressible
Harry Flashman. Fraser’s work also included over 30 movie scripts
including “The Three Musketeers” (1973).
(AP, 1/3/08)(WSJ, 1/17/08, p.D7)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.78)
2008 Feb 18, Alain Robbe-Grillet
(85), avant-garde French author, died. He dispensed with conventional
storytelling as a pioneer of the postwar "new novel" movement.
(AP, 2/18/08)
2008 Mar 19, Arthur C. Clarke
(b.1917), English-born science fiction writer, died in Sri Lanka.
Clarke wrote or collaborated on close to 100 books and had moved to Sri
Lanka in 1956. He had just finished his last novel, co-authored with
Frederik Pohl, titled “The Last Theorem.”
(AP, 3/19/08)(SFC, 3/19/08, p.A2)(SSFC, 8/10/08,
Books p.7)
2008 Mar 24, Rafael Azcona
(b.1926), Spanish novelist and scriptwriter, died. He was known for
films such as the Oscar-winning comedy "Belle Epoque" and Luis Garcia
Berlanga's "The Executioner."
(AP,
5/21/08)(http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Azcona)
2008 May 12, Oakley Hall (b.1920),
prolific author and writing teacher, died in Nevada City. His books
included “Warlock” (1958) and “The Art and Craft of Novel Writing”
(1994).
(SFC, 5/14/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 10, Salman Rushdie's
novel "Midnight's Children" was named as the greatest Booker Prize
winner ever, scooping a special "best of the best" award for the second
time.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Aug 3, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(b.1918), Russian Nobel literature laureate (1970), died of heart
failure in his Moscow home. His books, which included “One Day in the
Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1962) and "Gulag Archipelago" (1973),
chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps. In
1974, he was stripped of his citizenship and put on a plane to West
Germany for refusing to keep silent about his country's past.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W12)
2008 Aug 17, Dave Freeman (47),
co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die" (1999), a travel guide
and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died
after hitting his head in a fall at his home in Venice, Ca.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Sep 12, David Foster Wallace
(b.1962), the author best known for his 1996 novel "Infi-nite Jest,"
was found dead in his home in Claremont, Ca.
(AP, 9/13/08)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B7)
2008 Sep 16, James Crumley (1939),
American novelist, died in Missoula, Montana. His books included “The
Last Good Kiss” (1978). The opening line of that book has been widely
called the best in crime fiction.
(SFC, 9/20/08,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Crumley)
2008 Oct 9, The Swedish Academy
announced French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (b.1940)) as the
2008 Nobel Prize in literature for his poetic adventure and "sensual
ecstasy." Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert,"
in 1980.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 14, Indian author Aravind
Adiga (b.1974) won the 2008 Booker Prize with his first novel: “The
White Tiger.” The book follows Balram Halwai, the son of a rickshaw
puller, who dreams of better things than life as teashop worker and
driver.
(AFP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 26, Tony Hillerman
(b.1925), author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels
and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes — Navajo
police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee — died of pulmonary failure.
(AP, 10/27/08)
2008 Oct 31, Studs Terkel
(b.1912), Chicago radio personality and writer, died. His books
in-cluded “The Good War,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A2)
2008 Nov 10, Afghan writer Atiq
Rahimi won France's top book prize, the Goncourt, for a novel penned in
French, "Syngue Sabour", or Stone of Patience.
(AFP, 11/10/08)
2008 Nov 18, George C. Chesbro, US
writer, died. His 27 novels included a detective series featuring
Mongo, a dwarf detective. “Shadow of a Broken Man” (1977) starred Mongo
and proved to be Chesbro’s breakout hit.
(SFC, 11/27/08, p.B8)
2008 Nov 27, In Spain novelist
Juan Marse (75), known for his descriptions of hardship in Catalonia
during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), won the Cervantes Prize, the
Spanish speaking world’s highest literary prize.
(SFC, 11/28/08, p.E10)
2008 Dec 18, Conor Cruise O’Brien
(89), Irish diplomat and man of letters, died. His books included “To
Katanga and Back” (1962) and “Religion and Politics”
(1984).
(SSFC, 12/21/08, p.B6)
2008 Dec 24, Harold Pinter (78), a
Nobel Prize-winning British playwright, died. He was one of theatre's
biggest names for nearly half a century. His 32 plays included "The
Birthday Party", "The Dumb Waiter" and "The Homecoming". His first
play, "The Room," appeared in 1957 and his breakthrough came with "The
Caretaker" in 1960.
(AFP, 12/25/08)
2008 Dec 30, Paul Hofmann (96),
Austria-born writer, died in Rome. During WWII he in-formed on his Nazi
commanders in occupied Rome and later became a New York Times
corre-spondent. Hofmann authored over a dozen books, including "That
Fine Italian Hand," "The Seasons of Rome: A Journal" and "O Vatican! A
Slightly Wicked View of the Holy See."
(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Patrick French authored “The
World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul.” V.S,
Naipaul (b.1932), English novelist born in Chaguana, Trinidad,
won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.
(SFC, 10/12/01, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/7/08, p.W10)
2008 Jonah Goldberg authored
“Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from
Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.”
(WSJ, 1/4/08, p.W5)
2008 Jay Parini authored “Promised
Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America.”
(WSJ, 11/8/08, p.W8)
2008 Slavoj Zizek, Slovenian
writer, authored “Violence.” It was a smaller offspring of his lar-ger
book “In Defense of Lost Causes,” also published this year.
(SSFC, 9/28/08, Books p.7)
2009 Jan 11, Arne Naess
(b.1912), Norwegian philosopher, writer and mountaineer, died. He was
best known for launching the concept of "deep ecology," promoting the
idea that Earth as a planet has as much right as its inhabitants, such
as humans, to survive and flourish.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 16, John Mortimer
(b.1923), British lawyer and writer, died. He was the creator of the
curmudgeonly criminal lawyer Rumpole of the Bailey.
(AP, 1/16/09)
2009 Jan 19, In Thailand Harry
Nicolaides (41), an Australian writer, was sentenced to three years in
prison for insulting Thailand's royal family in his novel, a rare
conviction of a foreigner amid a crackdown on people and Web sites
deemed critical of the monarchy. Bangkok's Crimi-nal Court sentenced
Nicolaides to six years behind bars but reduced the term because he had
entered a guilty plea. His 2005 book “Verisimilitude” had sold 7 copies.
(AP, 1/19/09)(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 27, John Updike (b.1932),
American writer and poet, died of lung cancer. He re-leased more than
60 books, including 28 novels, in a career that started in the 1950s,
winning virtually every literary prize.
(AP, 1/28/09)(Econ, 1/31/09, p.89)
2009 Feb 17, Sudanese writer Tayeb
Salih (b.1929), one of the most respected Arab novel-ists of the 20th
century, died in London where he spent most of his life. His books
included the classic "Season of Migration to the North" (1966) about a
Sudanese man's experiences of life and love in Britain in the 1960s.
(AFP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 20, Christopher Nolan
(43), an Irish poet and novelist, died in Dublin. He had re-fused to
let cerebral palsy get in the way of his writing. Using a "unicorn
stick" strapped to his forehead to tap the keys of a typewriter, Nolan
laboriously wrote out messages and, eventually, poems and books as
well. His autobiography, "Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of
Christopher Nolan," won the prestigious Whitbread Award in 1988.
(AP, 2/22/09)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.91)
2009 Apr 11, Corin Tellado (81), a
well-known Spanish author of more than 4,000 romance novels, died while
celebrating the Easter holidays with her family.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 14, French author Maurice
Druon (b.1918), a fighter for France's World War II Re-sistance
movement and writer of one of its anthems, died. After the conflict he
wrote historical novels including the "Rois Maudits" (Accursed Kings)
series.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 19, Author J.G. Ballard
(b.1930), a China-born author and survivor of a Japanese prison camp,
died in London. His vision was so dark and distinctive it was labeled
"Ballardian." His first novel, "The Wind From Nowhere" (1962) sold well
enough for Ballard to become a full-time writer. Other works included
the novels "The Drowned World" and "The Crystal World" and the story
collection "Vermilion Sands." He reached a wide audience with the
autobiographical "Empire of the Sun" (1984), adapted as a film (1987)
by Steven Spielberg.
(AP, 4/20/09)(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W12)
2009 May 17, Mario Benedetti
(b.1920), a prolific Uruguayan writer, died. His novels and po-ems
reflect the idiosyncrasies of Montevideo's middle class and a social
commitment forged by years in exile from a military dictatorship.
Benedetti's 1960 novel "The Truce" was translated into 19 languages and
along with "Thank You for the Fire" (1965), heralded his inclusion in
the Latin American literary boom in the 1960s. In 1973 he joined
thousands of other Uruguayans fleeing the nation's military
dictatorship, spending 12 years in exile in Havana, Madrid, Lima and
Buenos Aires.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 25, Israeli writer Amos
Elon (82), one of the country's leading chroniclers and crit-ics, died
in his adopted home of Italy. His best-known book, "The Israelis:
Founders and Sons" (1971), stood out as one of the first works by an
Israeli to deal with the national aspirations of the Palestinians.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 27, Alice Munro (77),
Canadian short writer, won the Man Booker international prize.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.86)
2009 Jul 6, Vasily Aksyonov
(b.1932), Russian novelist and Soviet dissident, died in Moscow. He was
forced into exile in 1980 after being branded as “anti-Soviet” and
lived in the US for over two decades. His over 20 novels included “The
Moscow Saga” (1994), which was adopted for a popular TV series in 2004.
(SFC, 7/8/09, p.D5)
2009 Jul 19,
Frank McCourt (78), former NYC teacher and Irish-born author, died of
cancer. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his memoir “Angela’s Ashes” (1996).
(SFC, 7/20/09, p.C5)
2009 Jul 23, E. Lynn Harris
(b.1955), pioneer of gay black fiction, died while promoting his latest
book in Los Angeles. Long before the secret world of closeted black gay
men came to light in America, Harris introduced a generation of black
women to the phenomenon known as the "down low." His debut "Invisible
Life" (1994) was a coming-of-age story that dealt with the then-taboo
topic.
(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Aug 5, Amos Kenan (b.1927),
Israeli artist and writer, died in Tel Aviv. As a member of Israel's
founding generation his writing and art helped define modern Israeli
culture. Kenan was party to several efforts to create an alliance with
the Palestinians. He helped pen a 1957 mani-festo calling for the
creation of a Palestinian state in federation with Israel at a time
when few Israelis acknowledged the Palestinians' existence as a
national group.
(AP, 8/5/09)
2009 Aug 26, Dominick Dunne
(b.1925), novelist and Vanity Fair columnist, died. His books included
“The Two Mrs. Grenvilles” (1985), based on the 1955 Woodward murder
case.
(SFC, 8/27/09, p.A9)
2009 Sep 5, Keith Waterhouse (80)
a prolific British author, journalist and playwright, died. Waterhouse
was best known for the 1959 novel Billy Liar -- the story of a
day-dreamer who plans his escape from a depressing job as an
undertaker. It was made into a film in 1963.
(AFP, 9/5/09)
2009 Oct 9, Jacques Chessex
(b.1934), one of French-speaking Switzerland's leading novel-ists and
the first non-Frenchman to receive the prestigious Prix Goncourt, died.
He was hon-ored in 1973 with the Prix Goncourt literary award for his
novel "L'ogre" ("The Ogre"), a largely autobiographical account of a
difficult father-son relationship.
(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Nov 2, French-born writer
Marie Ndiaye (b.1967) won France's top literary prize for "Three Strong
Women," her moving tale of the struggles of women in Europe and Africa.
She was born in Pithiviers, to a French mother and a Senegalese father
and currently lived in Berlin.
(AP, 11/2/09)
2009 Nov 3, Claude Levi-Strauss
(b.1908), Brussels-born French intellectual, died. He was widely
considered the father of modern anthropology for work that included
theories about commonalities between tribal and industrial societies.
His books included literary and anthropo-logical classics such as
"Tristes Tropiques" (1955), "The Savage Mind" (1963) and "The Raw and
the Cooked" (1964).
(AP, 11/3/09)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.106)
2009 Nov 3, Francisco Ayala (103),
Spanish novelist and sociologist, died in Madrid. He was one of Spain's
leading scholars and had gone into exile during the country's decades
of dicta-torship. Ayala published his first book, "Tragicomedia de un
hombre sin espiritu" (Tragicomedy of a Man Without Spirit), in 1925.
The collapse of moral order and the hopelessness of human relations are
also common themes in pessimistic and satirical novels such as "Muertes
de Perro" (Death as a Way of Life) and "El Jardin de Las Delicias"
(Garden of Delights).
(AP, 11/3/09)
2009 Nov 15, Dr. Brooke Magnanti
(34), who works for The Bristol Initiative for Research of Child
Health, revealed herself to be the woman behind the nom de plume "Belle
de Jour," which is the title of a 1967 French film starring Catherine
Deneuve. Magnanti kept a weblog of her an-tics in 2003-2004, which were
turned into a best-selling book, "The Intimate Adventures of a London
Call Girl." Her memoirs were adapted into a hit 16-episode television
series "Secret Di-ary of a Call Girl," which starred Billie Piper and
was screened in countries around the world.
(AFP, 11/16/09)
2009 Nov 18, In NYC the 60th
annual Book Awards honored Gore Vidal with its lifetime achievement
award. David Eggers won the Literarian Award. Colum McCann won the
fiction prize for his novel “Let the Great world Spin.” T.J. Styles won
the nonfiction award for “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius
Vanderbilt.”
(SFC, 11/20/09, p.F8)
2009 Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk,
2006 Nobel literature prize winner, authored his 8th novel: “The Museum
of Innocence.
(AP, 10/12/06)
2010 Jan 4, Irish writer Colm
Toibin was named novelist of the year in Britain's lucrative Costa Book
Awards for his emigrant saga "Brooklyn."
(AP, 1/4/10)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Writers
End of file