N. Scott Momaday, an author, literature professor and member of the Kiowa Indian tribe who became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize — for his 1968 debut novel, “House Made of Dawn” — and helped inspire a flowering of contemporary Native American literature, died Jan. 24 at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 89. Read more
Category: Obituaries
John Nichols, Literary Chronicler of Small-Town New Mexico, Dies at 83
John Nichols, who launched his literary career in his mid-20s with a pair of tragicomic novels but became best known for evoking New Mexico’s small towns and rural landscapes in books including “The Milagro Beanfield War,” was found dead Nov. 27 at his home in Taos, N.M. He was 83. Read more
AS Byatt, Author and Critic, Dies Aged 87
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, who wrote under the name AS Byatt, authored complex and critically acclaimed novels, including the Booker prize-winning Possession and her examination of artistic creation, The Children’s Book. Over her career, she won a swathe of literary awards, from the Booker to a Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters. Read more
Louise Glück, Nobel-Winning Poet Who Explored Trauma and Loss, Dies at 80
Louise Glück, an American poet whose searing, deeply personal work, often filtered through themes of classical mythology, religion and the natural world, won her practically every honor available, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and, in 2020, the Nobel Prize for Literature, died on Friday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 80. Read more
Milan Kundera, Czech Literary Star and Communist Party Outcast, Dies at 94
The author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” he was known for sexually charged novels that captured the suffocating absurdity of life in his native Czechoslovakia. Read more
Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89
Cormac McCarthy, the formidable and reclusive writer of Appalachia and the American Southwest, whose raggedly ornate early novels about misfits and grotesques gave way to the lush taciturnity of “All the Pretty Horses” and the apocalyptic minimalism of “The Road,” died on Tuesday at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 89. Read more
Anne Perry, Crime Writer With Her Own Dark Tale, Dies at 84
She was well into her career as a prolific author of historical crime fiction when a murderous past was publicly revealed and dramatized in a 1994 movie. Read more
John Jakes, Whose Historical Novels Hit the Jackpot, Dies at 90
His sagas of the Revolution and the Civil War sold tens of millions of copies, were adapted for TV and put him in the pantheon of big-name authors. Read more
Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize-Winning Japanese Writer, Dies Aged 88
Spanning fiction and essays, Oe’s work tackled a wide range of subjects from militarism and nuclear disarmament to innocence and trauma, and he became an outspoken champion for the voiceless in the face of what he regarded as his country’s failures. Regarded by some in Japan as distinctly western, Oe’s style was often likened to William Faulkner; in his own words, in his writing he would “start from my personal matters and then link it up with society, the state and the world” Read more
Russell Banks, Novelist Steeped in the Working Class, Dies at 82
He brought his own sometimes painful blue-collar experiences to bear in acclaimed stories exploring issues of race, class and power in American life. Read more
