Publishing News

People

April 15-30, 2005 Edition PEOPLE Literary Giant Saul Bellow Dies at Age 89

NEW YORK, NY/04/07/05—Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow died April 7 in his Massachusetts home at age 89. His wife, Janis, and daughter, Naomi, were at his beside when he died.

Bellow wrote the prize winning, Herzog and Humboldt’s Gift. He was one of 18 authors nominated for the first Man Booker International Prize, which will be awarded at a ceremony in Edinburgh in June

The author was born Solomon Bellows in 1915 to Russian Jewish immigrants in Montreal, and he moved as a child to Chicago, the setting for many of his stories. He published his first novel, The Dangling Man, in 1944. The book that catapulted him to fame in 1953 was The Adventures of Augie, for which he earned the National Book Award. He also won the NBA for Herzog in 1965 and for Mr. Sammler’s Planet in 1971. In 1976, he won the Nobel Prize for “the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work”. That same year he won the Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt’s Gift. In 2000, he published Ravelstein, a story about a professor dying of AIDS that was inspired by his close friend Allan Bloom.

Iowa Workshop Author Conroy Dies at Age 69

IOWA CITY, Iowa/04/07/05—Frank Conroy, director of the prestigous University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, died April 6 at the age of 69. In addition to his workshop role, he was the author of the memoir, Stop Time, which won him the National Book Award in 1967.

Conroy died of cancer at his home in Iowa City. He haed been director of the Workshop for 18 years, resigning only last year to teach writing. He also served as literary director at the National Endowment of the Arts.

Conroy published several other books, including Time & Tide, A Walk Through Nantucket,, a collection of essays entitled Dogs Bark, But the Caravan Rolls On, “Body & Soul, and Midair.

Conroy is survived by his second wife, Maggie, his three sons and three grandchildren.