Jeffrey Archer, a best-selling British author, politician, philanthropist, athlete and one-time jailbird whose résumé seesawed between achievement and disgrace, and who inspired abiding public fascination with headline-grabbing accounts, both fictional and personal, of ambition, self-promotion, misbehavior and scandal, died on Monday at his home in London. Read more
Category: Obituaries
Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81
Annie Dillard, who as a young American writer walked into the woods and came out with a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the wonders and horrors of creation, the modern classic “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” died on Tuesday at her home in South Wellfleet, Mass. Read more
Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92
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
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
