Don DeLillo, American novelist, essayist, and playwright
Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the digital age, politics, economics, and global terrorism.
DeLillo was initially a well-regarded cult writer, but the publication of White Noise in 1985 brought him widespread recognition, and he won the National Book Award for fiction. It was followed in 1988 by Libra, a bestseller. DeLillo has twice been a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist (for Mao II in 1992 and for Underworld in 1998), won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II in 1992 (receiving another PEN/Faulkner Award nomination for The Angel Esmeralda in 2012), won the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, was granted the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2013.DeLillo had described his fiction as concerned with "living in dangerous times", and in a 2005 interview said, "Writers must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments [...] I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
1936Nov, 20
Don DeLillo
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Events on 1936
- 7Mar
Treaty of Versailles
Prelude to World War II: In violation of the Locarno Pact and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany reoccupies the Rhineland. - 29Mar
Remilitarization of the Rhineland
In Germany, Adolf Hitler receives 99% of the votes in a referendum to ratify Germany's illegal remilitarization and reoccupation of the Rhineland, receiving 44.5 million votes out of 45.5 million registered voters. - 9May
Addis Ababa
Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5. - 26Jul
Spanish Civil War
The Axis powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War. - 7Sep
Benjamin the thylacine
The last thylacine, a carnivorous marsupial named Benjamin, dies alone in its cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.