|
In
Memoriam: 15 Authors Who Died in 2000
Here
is a tribute to fifteen authors who died this year. They leave behind
as their legacy stories that made us laugh, cry, think --- and love
reading.
Gwendolyn
Brooks: The first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize,
Brooks took home the award in 1950 for her second book of poetry,
Annie Allen. Over her lifetime she penned hundreds of poems,
published more than twenty books, and acted as Illinois' poet laureate
since 1968. Her poetry focused on the obstacles facing African-Americans,
particularly rampant racism, poverty and drug abuse. She received
a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the
Arts in 1989 and was named the 1994 Jefferson Lecturer by the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Born in Topeka, Kansas in 1917, Gwendolyn
Brooks passed away in Chicago, Illinois on December 4, 2000 at the
age of 83.
Barbara
Cartland: An amazingly prolific author of 723 romance novels,
Barbara Cartland is the undisputed Queen of Romance, at least in
terms of quantity.
At one point, she published more than twenty novels per year (most
were dictated to a team of secretaries and stenographers!). Forbidding
her characters to go to bed together unless they were married, she
claimed that Muslims appreciated the moral tone of her books. It
was rumored that Colonel Qaddafi was a fan. Barbara Cartland passed
away on May 21, 2000 at age 98.
Alex
Comfort: A trained biologist and psychiatrist, 1972 Comfort
published one of the first bestsellers advocating greater sexual
freedom, The Joy of Sex. While continuing with the Joy
of Sex series, he published numerous other books including What
is a Doctor, Sex in Society, Reality and Empathy
and The Philosophers. Born on February 10, 1920 in London,
England, Comfort passed away on March 26, 2000.
Barbara
Cooney: Distinguished and beloved illustrator (and sometime
author) of such finely wrought picture books as Miss Rumphius,
Hattie and the Wild Waves and Eleanor. Cooney twice
won the Caldecott Medal, in 1959 for Chanticleer and the Fox,
and in 1980 she won for The Ox-Cart Man, written by Donald
Hall. Barbara Cooney and her twin brother were born on August 6,
1917 in Brooklyn, New York. Cooney died on March 14, 2000 at the
age of 83. Her last book was Basket Moon published in September
of 1999.
Robert
Cormier: He broke through to readers with his 1974 publication
of The Chocolate War, a book that launched his success as
a Young Adult author. Winner of various awards, including the 1991
Margaret A. Edwards Award for his three books, The Chocolate
War, I Am The Cheese, and After the First Death,
Cormier wins new fans and impresses old ones with his growing list
of Young Adult novels. Born on January 17, 1925 in Leominster, Massachusetts,
Cormier passed away on November 2, 2000.
Jack
Davis: Widely considered the father of indigenous theater and
poetry in Australia, Davis published The First-Born and Other
Poems, the first of three books of poems, in 1968. His play,
Kullark, was commissioned in 1979 as part of the 150th anniversary
celebration of the founding of the state of Western Australia, which
was followed by his 1983 theatre piece, The Dreamers. In
1991 he published his autobiography, A Boy's Life. Davis
passed away in March, 2000.
Dr.
Albert Joseph Guerard: A novelist, critical essayist and professor
emeritus at Stanford University, Guerard taught future literary
icons, namely Alice Hoffman and John Updike. Guerard's novels include
Maquisard, Night Journey, Exiles, Christine/Annette
and Hotel in the Jungle. His critical works include The
Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky and Faulkner and Conrad
the Novelist. Albert J. Guerard was born in Houston in 1914
and passed away on November 9, 2000 in his home on the university's
campus. He was 86.
Jean
Karl:
Editor and founder of Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Karl stayed
there until her retirement in 1985. She also founded the YA mass-market
imprint Aladdin and the YA SF imprint Atheneum Argo. Karl edited
and published three of Ursula K. Le Guin's ''Earthsea'' books, beginning
with The Tombs of Atuan in 1971, and followed by The Farthest
Shore (1972), which won a National Book Award. As an author,
she is best known for The Turning Place (1976). Jean Karl
passed away on March 30, 2000 at a hospice in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
She was 72.
Robert
E. Kogan: His poetry has appeared in The American Bard,
The American Poet, The Golden Quill Anthology, Prairie
Poet, a F.P.S Anthology, The Rambler, The Blair Press, Stars
and Stripes, The Doylestown Daily Intelligencer, Orison and Georgian
Blue Poetry Anthology 1996; and a privately published collection
titled The New Creation and Other Poems. Robert Kogan was
63.
Eloise
McGraw: The Moorchild, a 1996 Newberry Honor book, was
one of many highly acclaimed children's novels written by Eloise
Jarvis McGraw. Her first novel, Sawdust in his Shoes, was
published in 1950 and was soon followed by Moccasin Trail
and The Golden Goblet, both of which were Newberry Honor
books. A Really Weird Summer won an Edgar Award from the
Mystery Writers of America. Born on September 9, 1915 in Houston,
Texas, Eloise McGraw passed away on November 30, 2000 in Portland,
Oregon.
Patrick
O'Brian: In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected
Aubrey/Maturin series of novels, Patrick O'Brian has written acclaimed
biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and has translated
many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of
Simone de Beauvoir. Born on December 12, 1914 in Chalfont St. Peter,
England, O'Brian passed away on January 7, 2000 at age 85 in Scotland.
Marlene
Masini Rathgeb: In
addition to her almost 20 years as Creative Services Director at
Mademoiselle Magazine, Marlene Rathgeb authored three books on astrology:
The Love System, Success Signs, and Sexual Astrology.
She also wrote columns and articles for Redbook, Mirabella, New
Woman , Elle and Mademoiselle Magazines. Born in Newark, New Jersey,
Marlene Masini Rathgeb passed away on December 4, 2000 in New York.
She was 68.
Beatrice
Schenk de Regniers:
A prolific children's author, de Regniers' works include fiction,
poems, folktale retellings, and classic riddles, verses, rhymes,
and an autobiography, A Little House of Your Own. Ten of
her books were published under the pseudonym of Tamara Kitt, including
The Adventures of Silly Billy (1961) and The Boy Who Fooled
The Giant (1963). May I Bring A Friend? (1964) was awarded
the Caldecott Medal in 1965. In 1961 de Regniers took a job at Scholastic
Books as the editor of the "Lucky Book Club." She worked
there for twenty years. Born on August 16, 1914 in Lafayette, Indiana,
Beatrice Schenk de Regniers passed away on March 1, 2000 at her
home in Washington. She was 86.
Charles
Schulz: Author and illustrator of the world's most famous comic
strip, Schulz and his PEANUTS gang appeared in daily and Sunday
newspapers worldwide for almost 50 years. Of his craft he once said,
"I don't think I'm a true artist. I would love to be Andrew
Wyeth or Picasso...But I can draw pretty well and I can write pretty
well, and I think I'm doing the best with whatever abilities I have
been given. And what more can one ask?" Born in Minneapolis,
Minnesota in 1922, Schulz passed away on February 12, 2000 in Santa
Rosa, California, just hours before his last original PEANUTS strip
appeared in the Sunday papers.
Verna
Aardema Vugteveen: A late-blooming yet prolific writer, Verna
Aardema (the name she used on her books) was a chronicler and modernizer
of traditional African folktales. She combined humor, magic and
adventure to recreate stories with themes of heroism and morality.
In 1976 she was awarded the Caldecott Medal for Why Mosquitoes
Buzz in People's Ears: An African Folk Tale. Most recently she
published Anansi Does the Impossible (1997) and This for
That: A Tongi Tale (1997). Born on June 6, 1911 in Michigan,
Verna Aardema passed away on May 11, 2000 at a nursing home in Fort
Myers, Florida. She was 88.
|
