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Cormac McCarthy was an American author who wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western, post-apocalyptic, and Southern Gothic genres. His works often include graphic depictions of violence, and his writing style is characterized by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists.
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culture · American writer (1933–2023) · novelist · playwright · writer · film screenwriter · also Cormac McCarthy, Charles McCarthy, Charles Joseph McCarthy, McCarthy
Born 20 July 1933 · Died 13 June 2023 · Q272610
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I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.
to have written even one book so authentically strong and allusive, and capable of the perpetual reverberation that Blood Meridian possesses more than justifies him. ... He has attained genius with that book.
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“I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.”
“to have written even one book so authentically strong and allusive, and capable of the perpetual reverberation that Blood Meridian possesses more than justifies him. ... He has attained genius with that book.”
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“Writing is way, way down at the bottom of the list.”
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“not a fan of some of the Latin American writers, magical realism. You know, it”
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“You have to be dedicated, but it was my number-one priority.”
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Far Out Magazine: Movie adaptation of the two final Cormac McCarthy novels scrapped
ScreenRant: Cormac McCarthy's Movie Adaptation For Final Twin Novels Is No Longer Happening
Mafab.hu: Képgaléria: Cormac McCarthy halála: 5 filmadaptációval emlékezünk a Pulitzer-díjas íróra
JoBlo: Jeff Nichols says Adam Driver’s Yankee Comandante is dead and Cormac McCarthy adaptation isn’t moving forward either
The Playlist: Jeff Nichols & Adam Driver Reuniting For Mystery Project After Cuban Revolution Pic 'Yankee Comandante' Stalls, Cormac McCarthy Western Also Dead
World of Reel: Jeff Nichols Says His Cormac McCarthy Movie Not Moving Forward: “I Was a Little Too Faithful to the Books”
The Journal of Music in Ireland: Irish Rhapsodies: Selena O’Neill and Seán Doherty (World Premieres) – Aoife Ní Bhriain and Cormac McCarthy @ Masters of Tradition 2026
Infobae: De Toni Morrison a Cormac McCarthy: Barack Obama apuesta por la literatura en su nuevo podcast
Blu-ray.com: Charles McCarthy (I) - Blu-ray.com
The Guardian: American witchhunt: how the McCarthy blacklist annihilated the Hollywood left
Public attention spiked: 17,096 Wikipedia readers in one day, 5.6× the usual 3,034, with 0 article edits.
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The Guardian: Let’s be honest with ourselves: Cormac McCarthy groomed a teenage girl | Moira Donegan
The Guardian: Cormac McCarthy had 16-year-old ‘muse’ when he was 42, Vanity Fair reports
Vanity Fair published an article about McCarthy's 47-year relationship with a woman named Augusta Britt, whom he met when he was 42 and she was 16
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The Guardian: This month’s best paperbacks: Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy and more
The Guardian: Cormac McCarthy gave post-apocalyptic video games their flavour
The Guardian: ‘A man of miracles’: The Road director John Hillcoat on Cormac McCarthy
The Guardian: ‘His muse was the abyss’: why Cormac McCarthy’s blood-soaked visions will haunt us for ever
The Guardian: Cormac McCarthy remembered: ‘His work will sing down the centuries’
The Guardian: Cormac McCarthy obituary
The Guardian: Cormac McCarthy, celebrated US novelist, dies aged 89
The Guardian: Masterpieces and oddities: Cormac McCarthy’s bleak, bold and batty films
The Guardian: Cormac McCarthy showed us America’s violent heart | Martin Pengelly
The Guardian: A life in quotes: Cormac McCarthy
Died 2023-06-13.
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“(…) śmierć wydawała się jedyną cechą krajobrazu.”
“Nie masz takiej radości w gospodzie jak na drodze do niej wiodącej (…).”
The Guardian: Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy review – a slow-motion study of obliteration
The Guardian: The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy review – a deep dive into the abyss
And a second companion novel, Stella Maris, on November 22
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It was briefly marked verified following a viral tweet, after which his agent confirmed that the account was again a fake
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Another account impersonating McCarthy was created
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Snopes.com rated the claim “Author Cormac McCarthy passed away in June 2016.” False.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
A hoax spread on Twitter claiming that McCarthy had died, with USA Today even repeating the information
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McCarthy's next novel, The Passenger, was announced at a multimedium event hosted in Santa Fe by the Lannan Foundation
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Scottish writer Michael Crossan created a Twitter account impersonating McCarthy, quickly amassing several thousand followers and recognition by site owner Jack Dorsey
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The film was released on October 25, 2013, to polarized critical reception
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McCarthy sold his original screenplay The Counselor to Nick Wechsler, Paula Mae Schwartz, and Steve Schwartz, who had previously produced the film adaptation of McCarthy's novel The Road
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Awarded Tähtivaeltaja Award (2009).
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Awarded Ignotus Award for Best Foreign Novel for The Road (2008).
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Awarded Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Road (2007).
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Awarded James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Road (2006).
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Awarded Believer Book Award for The Road (2006).
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It won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
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Literary critic Harold Bloom named McCarthy as one of the four major living American novelists, alongside Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, and Philip Roth
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Awarded National Book Award for Fiction for All the Pretty Horses (1992).
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Awarded National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for All the Pretty Horses (1992).
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Awarded MacArthur Fellows Program (1981).
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McCarthy was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship worth $236,000
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Awarded Lillian Smith Book Award for Suttree (1980).
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McCarthy published his semiautobiographical Suttree, which he had written over a 20 year period, based on his experiences in Knoxville on the Tennessee River
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When he was 43, but she was still 17, on a shared trip to Mexico, they had progressed to a physical relationship
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When Britt was 17, McCarthy forged her birth certificate and took her to Mexico; this was also when he began having sex with her
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Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (1976).
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When McCarthy was 42, he met then-16-year-old Finnish-American Augusta Britt at a motel in Arizona
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And the episode, titled The Gardener's Son, aired on January 6, 1977
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McCarthy separated from Anne DeLisle and moved to El Paso, Texas
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Richard Pearce of PBS contacted McCarthy and asked him to write the screenplay for an episode of Visions, a television drama series
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Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (1969).
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The couple moved to Louisville, Tennessee, and purchased a dairy barn, which McCarthy renovated, doing the stonework himself
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Received a Rockefeller Foundation grant, which he used to travel around Southern Europe before landing in Ibiza, where he wrote his second novel, Outer Dark (1968)
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Random House published McCarthy's first novel, The Orchard Keeper (1965)
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McCarthy moved to what Holleman's obituary calls "a shack with no heat and running water in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains outside of Knoxville
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McCarthy dropped out of college and left for Chicago
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Where he majored in English and published two stories, "Wake for Susan" and "A Drowning Incident" in the student literary magazine, The Phoenix, writing under the name C
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Studied at University of Tennessee (1951–1953).
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Began attending the University of Tennessee, studying liberal arts
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Studied at Knoxville Catholic High School, high school diploma (1951).
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Enrolled in the University of Tennessee, but dropped out to join the U
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“We were considered rich because all the people around us were living in one- or two-room shacks.”
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The family relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father worked as a lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority
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One of six children of Gladys Christina McGrail and Charles Joseph McCarthy
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Born 1933-07-20.
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