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Biography of Walker Percy
Name: Walker Percy
Birth Date: May 28, 1916
Death Date: May 10, 1990
Place of Birth: Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America
Nationality: American
Gender: Male
Occupations: novelist
Walker Percy
Walker Percy (1916-1990) won the National Book Award for fiction in 1961 for his first published novel, The Moviegoer. In five subsequent novels and numerous essays, he explored his chosen theme of "the dislocation of man in the modern age." His work combined a distinctly southern sensibility with existential philosophy and a deeply-felt Catholicism.Walker Percy was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 28, 1916. He was a descendant of a distinguished Mississippi Protestant family that counted congressmen and Civil War heroes among its members. Before he was born, Percy's grandfather killed himself with a shotgun, setting a pattern of tragic death that would haunt the boy throughout his life.Early InfluencesIn 1929, Percy's father committed suicide with a shotgun. Percy, his mother, and his two brothers, Phin and Roy, then moved to Athens, Georgia. Two years later, Percy's mother was killed when she drove her car off a country bridge and into a bayou--…showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…Covington, Louisiana on May 10, 1990.Over the course of 26 years, Percy published six novels and two collections of nonfiction. He enjoyed both critical and financial success and established himself as America's leading Catholic novelist. Percy's consistent themes were the decline of the old Southern order--with its paternalism, code of honor, and sentimentality--and its succession by the New South: a sterile Hollywood-like pursuit of the American Dream. His work influenced the efforts of novelists as diverse as John Hawkes and Richard Ford, and kept alive the rich tradition of southern fiction dating back through Welty, O'Connor, and Faulkner. Associated Works The Moviegoer Further Reading Foote, Shelby et al., The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy: A Life, W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.Samway, Patrick H., Walker Percy: A Life, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1997.Tolson, Jay, Pilgrim in the Ruins: A Life of Walker Percy, University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
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