Alice Munro, Nobel winner and titan of the short story, dies aged 92

The Canadian short-story writer and Nobel prize winner Alice Munro, who examined everyday life through the lens of short fiction for more than 60 years, has died aged 92 at her care home in Ontario. She had suffered from dementia for more than a decade.

Once called “the Canadian Chekhov” by Cynthia Ozick, Munro’s body of work was founded on forms and subjects traditionally disregarded by the literary mainstream. It was only later in life that Munro’s reputation began to rise, her understated stories of apparently plain folks in undramatic, small-town Canada amassing a raft of international awards that included the 2013 Nobel prize in literature.

‘Babar’ Heir And Author Laurent De Brunhoff Dies At Age 98

‘Babar’ Heir And Author Laurent De Brunhoff Dies At Age 98

“Babar” author Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father’s popular picture book series about an elephant-king and presided over its rise to a global, multimedia franchise, has died. He was 98.

De Brunhoff, a Paris native who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s, died Friday at his home in Key West, Florida, after being in hospice care for two weeks, according to his widow, Phyllis Rose.

De Brunhoff was the eldest of three sons born to Jean de Brunhoff and Cecile de Brunhoff, a painter. Babar was created when Cecile de Brunhoff, the namesake for the elephant’s kingdom and Babar’s wife, improvised a story for her kids.

“My mother started to tell us a story to distract us,” de Brunhoff told National Geographic in 2014. “We loved it, and the next day we ran to our father’s study, which was in the corner of the garden, to tell him about it. He was very amused and started to draw. And that was how the story of Babar was born. My mother called him Bebe elephant (French for baby). It was my father who changed the name to Babar. But the first pages of the first book, with the elephant killed by a hunter and the escape to the city, was her story.”

https://apnews.com/article/native-writer-scott-momaday-dead-1b6690dfa0bb11eda12f3c219cee77e8

N. Scott Momaday, a Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator and folklorist whose debut novel "House Made of Dawn" is widely credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature, has died. He was 89.

From CNN: Milan Kundera, reclusive literary giant and author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ dies

Milan Kundera, reclusive literary giant and author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ dies

Milan Kundera, the Czech writer who became one of the 20th century's most influential novelists but spent much of his life in seclusion, rarely engaging with the public, died in Paris on Tuesday, according to the Moravian Library in Brno. He was 94.

"Milan Kundera, a Czech-French author who is among the world's most translated authors, died on July 11, 2023 in his Paris apartment,'' the library, a state-funded research organization, said in a statement.

Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer-Winning Author Of ‘The Road,’ Dies

Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer-Winning Author Of ‘The Road,’ Dies

Cormac McCarthy, the novelist known for his Southern Gothic stories, died in his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Tuesday at 89.

His publisher, Knopf, confirmed his death to Publishers Weekly.

McCarthy was one of the most celebrated novelists of his generation, considered by literary critic Harold Bloom to be as influential as Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth.

Actor Richard Belzer, Who Played ‘Law & Order’ Detective, Has Died

Actor Richard Belzer, Who Played ‘Law & Order’ Detective, Has Died

Actor, comedian and author Richard Belzer, who was known for portraying a cynical detective on the long-running “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” TV series, has died, it was reported Sunday.

Belzer, 78, died early Sunday at his home in southern France, his longtime friend Bill Scheft told The Hollywood Reporter.

“He had lots of health issues, and his last words were, ‘Fuck you, motherfucker,’” Scheft said.

Russell Banks, an award-winning fiction writer who rooted such novels as “Affliction” and “The Sweet Hereafter” in the wintry, rural communities of his native Northeast and imagined the dreams and downfalls of everyone from modern blue-collar workers to the radical abolitionist John Brown, has died. He was 82.

Banks, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, died Saturday in upstate New York, his editor, Dan Halpern, told The Associated Press. Banks was being treated for cancer, Halpern said.

Joan Didion, Beloved Author, Dies At 87

Joan Didion, Beloved Author, Dies At 87

Joan Didion, author of “The Year Of Magical Thinking” and “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” has died at age 87.

She died of complications related to Parkinson’s disease at her home in New York City, her publisher said in a statement.

Didion, whose writing shaped American literature for decades, was also famous for her novels “Play It As It Lays” (1970) and “A Book Of Common Prayer” (1977), as well as essays such as “On Keeping A Notebook,” “Why I Write” and “Goodbye To All That,” many of which ended up in her book of essays, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” (1968).

She won several Lifetime Achievement Awards, and in 2006, she was a Pulitzer finalist for her 2005 memoir “The Year Of Magical Thinking,” about the death of her husband, John Dunne, and her subsequent mourning.

bell hooks, Groundbreaking Feminist Thinker, Dies At 69

bell hooks, Groundbreaking Feminist Thinker, Dies At 69

— 0bell hooks, the groundbreaking author, educator and activist whose explorations of how race, gender, economics and politics were intertwined made her among the most influential thinkers of her time, has died. She was 69.

In a statement issued through William Morrow Publishers, hooks’ family announced that she died Wednesday in Berea, Kentucky, home to the bell hooks center at Berea College. Additional details were not immediately available.

“She was a giant, no nonsense person who lived by her own rules, and spoke her own truth in a time when Black people, and women especially, did not feel empowered to do that,” Dr. Linda Strong-Leek, a close friend and former provost of Berea College, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “It was a privilege to know her, and the world is a lesser place today because she is gone. There will never be another bell hooks.”

Author Anne Rice has died at the age of 80.

The star, whose popular books include Interview With A Vampire and The Vampire Chronicles, died surrounded by her family on Saturday night.

Her son, Christopher, confirmed the sad news on a statement on her public Facebook page, and explained that she died due to complications resulting from a stroke.

‘Dearest People of Page. This is Anne’s son Christopher and it breaks my heart to bring you this sad news,’ he began. ‘Earlier tonight, Anne passed away due to complications resulting from a stroke. She left us almost nineteen years to the day my father, her husband Stan, died.

John le Carré, Master Author Of Spy Craft And Cold War Intrigue, Dead At 89

John le Carré, Master Author Of Spy Craft And Cold War Intrigue, Dead At 89

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Finite Incantatum

Alysian_Fields

Chapters: 22/22 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Additional Tags: Drama, Romance, Explicit Language, Angst, Sexual Content Summary:

What should have happened after ‘Half Blood Prince’! It’s the autumn after Dumbledore’s death, the Death Eaters are steadily gaining power, and Harry and his friends are desperate to find the remaining Horcruxes. But then Draco Malfoy arrives at Grimmauld Place, traumatised, starved and drained of all his magical ability. It falls to Harry to show the Slytherin how to adapt to his new way of life, never guessing that Draco has a few things to teach him in return.

Excerpt:

Look at me!” Draco cried. “Do you see what I’ve become? I’m nothing! Look at this!” He grabbed something off the desk and held it out to Harry in a shaking hand. It was an orange. At least, it had been. The fruit was punctured and squashed, as if someone had repeatedly attempted to get into it but had only succeeded in reducing it to pulp. “Do you see?” Draco said. His voice was softer now, and hollow with despair. “This was supposed to be my breakfast, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t…”

“Wait,” Harry said. “You… you never even learnt how to eat an orange without the help of magic?”

“There’s a charm that opens it up for you,” Malfoy replied softly. “I never saw the point of learning the Muggle way – us Slytherin students had all been brought up to believe that it was beneath us. Nobody showed us. And now I’m one of them. I’m a disgrace; I doubt my own parents would acknowledge me now. And… and I can’t do anything. I needed help getting changed last night – I couldn’t undo the fastenings on my old robes.”

“Bloody hell,” Harry breathed. It was inconceivable to him that anyone was really so reliant on magic. Only having befriended people of Muggle lineage or who were Muggle sympathisers in the past, he had never really thought about the way the dedicated purebloods chose to live. He could see now why Voldemort’s chosen punishment was really the equivalent of the death sentence. It was the worst possible humiliation to someone like Malfoy.

“I want to die,” Draco continued quietly. “I can’t live like this; I hate myself and everything that I am now. I wish he had killed me.”

This display of melodrama brought Harry’s pragmatism to the fore. God knows he didn’t owe the other boy a thing, but he wasn’t going to just sit by and let someone fall apart, no matter how unpleasant that person had been to him.“Bollocks to that,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous. I realise I have no idea about these things and what it must mean to someone like you – and I really had no idea of how dependent on magic you were – but it’s not worth dying over. That’s just lying down and letting him win, and you’ve spent too long as Voldemort’s bitch as it is. I truly didn’t mean to make you feel worse before, and if you’ll let me, I’ll help you out. At least so that you can look after yourself unassisted.”

Harry looked into the other boy’s eyes, willing Malfoy to see that he was genuine. He hoped that the Slytherin’s resentment of him wouldn’t make him turn down the offer of help, but he knew how hard it must be. He would certainly hate it if their positions were reversed. “I’m not going to laugh at you,” he said. “I don’t like you, just as you don’t like me, but I won’t see anyone humiliated.”

“Fucking noble Gryffindor,” Draco muttered.

“Fucking arrogant Slytherin,” Harry adjoined.