David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
21.02.1962 - 12.09.2008 (46 years) (Ithaca, New York, USA)
David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American author of novels, short stories and essays, as well as a University professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which was cited by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times' David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years". Among the writers who cite Wallace as an influence are Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith, Bill Simmons, Jonathan Franzen, Elizabeth Wurtzel, George Saunders, Rivka Galchen, John Green, Matthew Gallaway, David Gordon, Darin Strauss, Charles Yu, Porochista Khakpour, and Deb Olin Unferth. Wallace died by suicide at age 46 after struggling with depression for many years.