Saturday, November 10, 2007
Author Obit: Norman Mailer, 1923-2007
Iconic and stridently opinionated American author Norman Mailer died early this morning of kidney failure, about a month after surgery to remove scar tissue around his lungs. He became famous for The Naked And The Dead, published in 1948, a "World War II tale [that] is universally recognized as one of the best war novels to emerge from that conflict." He won Pulitzers in 1968 for an account of the 1967 Vietnam War protest march on the Pentagon, The Armies of the Night, and in 1979 for The Executioner's Song, a novel about self-confessed murderer Gary Gilmore. Mailer published dozens of novels (his latest, The Castle in the Forest, a fictionalised account of Hitler's childhood told by an underling of Satan's, came out this year), stories, essays, and newspaper articles, and he co-founded The Village Voice, an alternative newspaper in New York.
Obituaries and Remembrances:
- USA Today, the most interesting of the obits so far
- NYT (AP)
- BBC
- 2007 interview with Mailer at EW.com
Labels: american writer, author, deaths, mailer, norman mailer, novelist, obituary
Friday, September 07, 2007
Author Obit: Madeleine L'Engle, 29 Nov. 1918 - 6 Sept. 2007
Publisher's Weekly reported this morning: "Author Madeleine L'Engle died last night in Connecticut, at the age of 89 [actually, 88]. Best known for her 1963 Newbery Award winner A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels, L'Engle was the author of more than 60 books for adults and young readers."
The NYT has an obituary.
Labels: author, children's books, deaths, l'engle, obituary, spirituality
Monday, July 09, 2007
RIP Kathleen Woodiwiss, 1939-2007
Bestselling historical romance author Kathleen Woodiwiss died
on 6 July at age 68 of cancer. She is considered by many to have created the 600-plus-page historical romance fiction novel. More here and here. Thursday, April 05, 2007
Author Obit: Michael Dibdin
The Rap Sheet reports that "Michael Dibdin, the 60-year-old author of an award-winning series starring Venetian detective Aurelio Zen (Back to Bologna), died" in Seattle, WA, last Friday, March 30, after a short illness." See also his extensive obituary in the Telegraph, which calls Zen "one of the quirkiest sleuths in crime fiction" and notes Dibdin's combination of a "flair for complex plotting and biting characterisation" with a "mastery of satire and the surreal."Labels: author, crime novels, crime series, deaths, dibdin, mystery series, obituary, set in venice
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Author Profile: Philip K. Dick
A personal reflection by Lisa Tuttle in Times Online about Philip K. Dick: "The fame of the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick, who died 25 years ago next week, has grown in the years since his death, thanks largely to films based on his work [first and notably the 1982 movie Blade Runner, based on Dick’s novel titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?], but also to changes in the world, or at least to our perception of it, that were prefigured in his writing. ... His books had shown me that science-fiction could explore inner space just as well as outer, and had made me determined to write it myself. But the life of the man himself could have been a warning against trying to make a living at it."
Labels: author, profile, science fiction
