Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer who plowed his fields behind Belgian draft horses and wrote lyrical poems, novels and essays — mostly in pencil and without electric light — that explored his elegiac visions of the life and death of agrarian America, died on Monday at his home in Port Royal, Ky. Read more
Category: Obituaries
John Crowley, Acclaimed Fantasy Novelist Behind ‘Little, Big,’ Dies at 83
John Crowley, the American author whose novels earned him recognition as one of the most acclaimed fantasy writers of his generation, died on August 9, 2026, at the age of 83. Read more
Ursula Hegi, Who Wrote Searing Novels About Nazi-Era Germany, Dies at 80
Ursula Hegi, a novelist who drew on her childhood in post-World War II Germany to write searing books about silence, community and historical memory, including the best-selling “Stones From the River,” died on July 27 in Sag Harbor, N.Y., on Long Island. Read more
Dissident Hong Kong Bookseller Lam Wing-kee Dies Aged 70
He was one of several booksellers detained in 2015 after selling material critical of the political elite on China’s mainland. He fled to Taiwan – which is seen by Beijing as a renegade province that must be reunited – in 2019 for fear he would be sent back to China under Hong Kong’s proposed extradition bill. Taiwan’s authorities said at the time that the reopening of Lam’s Causeway Bay Books bookshop was a symbol of democracy and freedom on the island. Read more
Jane Yolen, Author of 450 Books Including ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’, Dies at 87
Yolen penned 40 novels, multiple book series, and hundreds of poems. She is known for her 1988 Holocaust novella, The Devil’s Arithmetic, which earned her a World Fantasy Award. Read more
Marjane Satrapi, Creator of Persepolis and Acclaimed French-Iranian Artist, Has Died
Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian artist, film-maker and graphic novelist whose acclaimed memoir Persepolis helped reshape international perceptions of Iran, has died at the age of 56. Read more
Philip Caputo, Who Wrote Blistering Vietnam War Memoir, Dies at 84
“A Rumor of War,” about his service as a Marine Corps infantry officer and published in 1977, relentlessly detailed “the things men do in war and the things war does to them.” Read more
Zoologist and Author Desmond Morris Dies Aged 98
Morris was best known for his book, The Naked Ape, which was published in 1967. It framed modern humans as still being fundamentally ape-like despite our technological advances and evolution. He was also a surrealist painter and exhibited his work around the world alongside artists such as Joan Miró. Read more
Tracy Kidder, Author of ‘The Soul of a New Machine,’ Dies at 80
Tracy Kidder, a wide-ranging journalist and author whose deep reporting and novelistic prose illuminated worlds as diverse as home construction, disease prevention and — as portrayed in his prizewinning 1981 breakthrough book, “The Soul of a New Machine” — the computer industry, died on Tuesday in Boston. Read more
Len Deighton, Author of Espionage Best-Sellers, Dies at 97
Len Deighton, the British author who brought a documentary-style realism to the spy genre in 1960s Cold War thrillers like “The Ipcress File” and “Funeral in Berlin,” the film versions of which helped make Michael Caine an international star, died on Sunday at his home in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands between England and France. Read more
