“When I was writing the book, I did not know whether or not I would survive. When I was writing the play, I knew that I had survived.”
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Joan Didion
Joan Didion was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe.
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culture · American writer (1934–2021) · screenwriter · novelist · journalist · writer · essayist · editing staff · also Joan Didion, Didion
Born 5 December 1934 · Died 23 December 2021 · Q267691
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2026· 1 entry
2025· 8 entries
The Guardian: My friend Joan Didion wouldn’t have wanted her therapy notes to be published | Letter
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The Guardian: Notes to John by Joan Didion review – an invasion of privacy
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The Guardian: The Guardian view on posthumously publishing Joan Didion: goodbye to all that | Editorial
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The Guardian: ‘I dealt with everyone at a distance’: what do Joan Didion’s therapy diaries reveal about guilt, motherhood and writing?
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The Guardian: Literary gold … or betrayal of trust? Joan Didion journal opens ethical minefield
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Yahoo: Joan Didion's diary of post-therapy notes is going to be published
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The Guardian: Joan Didion’s ‘astonishingly intimate’ diary to be published
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The Guardian: Joan Didion and Mike Davis understood LA through its fires. Even they couldn’t predict this week
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2024· 5 entries
The Guardian: Eve Babitz and Joan Didion may be dead. But their feud isn’t
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Vogue: Are You More Joan Didion or Eve Babitz?
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The Guardian: What I learned about loss and joy from Joan Didion, my mentor 60 years my senior | Cory Leadbeater
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The Guardian: The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater review – exploding the Joan Didion myth
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New York Post: Joan Didion’s longtime NYC home sells for $5.4M
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2023· 2 entries
The Guardian: The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell review – bits and pieces of a literary pioneer
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New York Post: Joan Didion’s longtime NYC home lists for $7.5M
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2022· 2 entries
The New Yorker: Joan Didion’s Priceless Sunglasses
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Yahoo: Renowned author Joan Didion honored by hundreds at memorial
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2021· 3 entries
People: Griffin Dunne Mourns the Death of His Aunt Joan Didion, Remembers 'Her Self-Respect, Certain Toughness'
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Died 2021-12-23.
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Didion published Let Me Tell You What I Mean, a collection of 12 essays she wrote between 1968 and 2000
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2014· 1 entry
Awarded California Hall of Fame (2014).
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2013· 2 entries
Won National Medal of Arts (2013).
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Was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama
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2012· 2 entries
Won National Humanities Medal (2012).
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New York magazine announced that Didion and Todd Field were "co-writing a screenplay"
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2011· 2 entries
New York magazine reported that the Harrison criticism "still gets her (Didion's) hackles up, decades later"
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Knopf published Blue Nights, a memoir about aging that also focused on Didion's relationship with her late daughter
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2007· 2 entries
Awarded National Book Award for The Year of Magical Thinking (2007).
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Awarded Prix Médicis essai (2007).
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2005· 3 entries
Won American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals (2005).
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Awarded Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2005).
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Won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir of the year following the sudden death o
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2004· 2 entries
At the age of 70, Didion began writing The Year of Magical Thinking, documenting her response to the death of her husband and the severe illness of their daughter
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Quintana died of acute pancreatitis on August 26, 2005, at age 39, during Didion's New York promotion for The Year of Magical Thinking
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2003· 2 entries
Didion and Dunne remained together until his death from a heart attack in 2003.
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Didion's daughter Quintana Roo Dunne developed pneumonia that progressed to septic shock and she was comatose in an intensive-care unit when Didion's husband suddenly died of a heart attack on December 30
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2002· 1 entry
Awarded St. Louis Literary Award (2002).
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2001· 1 entry
Awarded George Polk Award for The New York Review of Books (2001).
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1996· 2 entries
Won Edward MacDowell Medal (1996).
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Breaking a long-held silence on Didion, Parmentel was interviewed for an article about her in New York magazine
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1992· 1 entry
Didion published After Henry, a collection of twelve geographical essays and a personal memorial for Henry Robbins, who was Didion's friend and editor until his death in 1979
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1991· 1 entry
Wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest that the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted
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1988· 2 entries
Awarded Ambassador Book Award for Miami (1988).
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The couple moved from California to New York City
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1979· 1 entry
Published The White Album, another collection of her magazine pieces from Life, Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, and The New York Review of Books
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1972· 1 entry
Was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but remained in remission throughout her life
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1970· 1 entry
And A Book of Common Prayer appeared in 1977
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1968· 1 entry
Didion published her first nonfiction book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a collection of magazine pieces about her experiences in California
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1966· 1 entry
Adopted a daughter, whom they named Quintana Roo Dunne
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1964· 1 entry
Intending to stay only temporarily, but California remained their home for the next 20 years
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1957· 1 entry
From 1957 to 1962, Didion was in a relationship with Noel E.
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1956· 1 entry
Studied at University of California, Berkeley, Bachelor of Arts (1956).
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1943· 1 entry
Or early 1944, her family returned to Sacramento, and her father went to Detroit to negotiate defense contracts for World War II
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1934· 3 entries
In Sacramento, California, to Eduene (née Jerrett) and Frank Reese Didion
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Born 1934-12-05.
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“s death in her 2011 book, Blue Nights. 2000s Didion was living in an apartment on East 71st Street in Manhattan in 2005. Everyman”
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