James Purdy
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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James Otis Purdy (17 July 1914 - 13 March 2009) was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who since his debut (63: Dream Palace, 1956) had published over a dozen novels, and several collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. It has been praised by writers as diverse as Dame Edith Sitwell (an important early advocate), Dorothy Parker, Edward Albee, James M. Cain, Terry Southern, Lillian Hellman, A.N. Wilson, Francis King, Gore Vidal (who described Purdy as "an authentic American genius") and Marianne Moore. Purdy has been the recipient of the Morton Dauwen Zabel Fiction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1993) and was nominated for the P.E.N.-Faulkner Award for his novel On Glory's Course (1984). In addition, he won two Guggenheim Fellowships (1958 and 1962), and grants from the Ford Foundation (1961), and Rockefeller Foundation. He worked as an interpreter and lectured in Europe with the United States Information Agency.