Frank McCourt, Author. Dies at 78

Frank McCourt, Author of ‘Angela’s Ashes,’ Dies at 78

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/books/20mccourt.html?_r=1&ref=books

Mr. McCourt, who taught in the city’s school system for nearly 30 years, had always told his writing students that they were their own best material. In his mid-60s, he decided to take his own advice, sitting down to commit his childhood memories to paper and producing what he described as “a modest book, modestly written.”

“Angela’s Ashes,” published by Scribner in 1996, rose to the top of the best-seller lists and stayed there for more than two years, selling four million copies in hardback. The next year, it won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award.




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