Walker Percy | |
|---|---|
 Percy in 1987 | |
| Born | May 28, 1916 Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | May 10, 1990 (aged 73) Covington, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (BA) Columbia University (MD) |
| Period | 1961–1990 |
| Genre | Philosophical novelist, memoir, essays |
| Literary movement | Southern Gothic |
| Notable works | The Moviegoer |
| Spouse |
Mary Bernice Townsend
(m. 1946) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | William Alexander Percy |
Walker Percy, OblSB (May 28, 1916 – May 10, 1990) was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction.[1]
Trained as a physician at Columbia University, Percy decided to become a writer after a bout of tuberculosis. He devoted his literary life to the exploration of "the dislocation of man in the modern age."[2] His work displays a combination of existential questioning, Southern sensibility, and deep Catholic faith. He had a lifelong friendship with author and historian Shelby Foote and spent much of his life in Covington, Louisiana, where he died of prostate cancer in 1990.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
nba1962was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Kimball, Roger. Existentialism, Semiotics and Iced Tea, Review of Conversations with Walker Percy New York Times, August 4, 1985. Retrieved 2010-06-12.