Beloved American author Cormac McCarthy has died at age 89 from natural causes.
Considered a key figure of modern and contemporary fiction, McCarthy gained a cult readership for his striking, violent portrayal of the American South and West, making him comparable to authors like William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor as an exponent of the Gothic South, with apocalyptic and pessimistic tendencies.
Stylistically complex and graphic in his imagery, McCarthy was considered a unique voice in contemporary literature. His historical epic Blood Meridian has been called “The Great American Novel”, while No Country for Old Men and The Road were adapted into now iconic films.
As something of a linguistic philosopher, McCarthy theorized about the link between language operation and the human unconscious. Not unrelatedly, experimentation with bilingualism dipping in and in out of his texts.
As something of a living legend for many aspiring authors, McCarthy was also known for his reclusive absolutism in not working in any field but writing – which led to significant financial difficulties for himself and his family – and, likely as a direct result of his way of life, his enormously prolific writerly output. Famous literary critic like Harold Bloom or James Wood prophesy that his work will remain canonical.
