Walker Percy was an American writer, born in 1916, whose fiction and essays explored alienation, existentialism, faith and the limits of science in modern life. A prominent Southern and Catholic literary figure, he is especially noted for novels set in New Orleans, beginning with The Moviegoer in 1961, which won the National Book Award for Fiction. He trained as a physician at Columbia but contracted tuberculosis while interning at Bellevue Hospital, and during years of convalescence read Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Sartre, which led him to doubt that science could explain human existence. He became a Catholic in 1947. His later novels include The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, Lancelot, The Second Coming and The Thanatos Syndrome, and he also wrote nonfiction on semiotics. He lived mostly in Covington, Louisiana, helped bring A Confederacy of Dunces into print, and died in 1990.
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AwardNational Book Award for Fiction 1 Form Mostly Written Form Mostly Written Connections
In Genre
Source Walker Percy (Wikipedia)
In Movement
Source Walker Percy (Wikipedia)
Influenced By
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Source Walker Percy (Wikipedia)
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Source Walker Percy (Wikipedia)Lead, first sentenceQuote, Lead, first sentence
was an American writer
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1. Walker Percy (Wikipedia)
Lead, dates
May 28, 1916, May 10, 1990
Lead, first paragraph [award]
won the National Book Award for Fiction
Lead, first sentence
was an American writer
- Article categories: Category:20th-century American male novelists
Lead
His first, The Moviegoer (1961), won the National Book Award for Fiction.
In Genre: The Novel, Lead, first paragraph
Percy is especially noted for his novels set in New Orleans
Influenced By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lead, second paragraph
Percy read the works of Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Jean-Paul Sartre
Influenced By: Jean-Paul Sartre, Lead, second paragraph
Percy read the works of Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Jean-Paul Sartre
View the Source2. Treccani (Enciclopedia Italiana): Walker Percy - Enciclopedia Treccani
Treccani (Enciclopedia Italiana)Entry text
dî di linguistica e di filosofia, prima di approdare alla letteratura con il fortunato romanzo The moviegoer (1961; trad. it. 1988), incentrato sul motivo dell'isolamento in un mondo fittizio che si sovrappone a quello reale. Il tema dell'alienazione ricorre nei successivi The last gentleman (1966),
Entry text, form mostly written
0), definendo una poetica dell'assurdo venata di intensa comicità. P. raccolse la propria produzione saggistica in The message in the bottle (1975). © Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani - Riproduzione riservata
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