Cormac McCarthy biography

Cormac McCarthy was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter whose sparse, muscular prose established him as one of the most influential figures in contemporary literature. Born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr. in Providence, Rhode Island, he was raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. He briefly attended the University of Tennessee before joining the U.S. Air Force, an experience that ignited his passion for reading.

McCarthy spent decades writing in self-imposed poverty, often refusing teaching positions or interviews to focus entirely on his craft. His early works, such as Suttree and Child of God, are hallmarks of the Southern Gothic genre. In 1985, he published Blood Meridian, a violent, apocalyptic Western that many critics now regard as the "Great American Novel."

He achieved mainstream success in 1992 with All the Pretty Horses, the first of his Border Trilogy. McCarthy's late-career masterpiece, The Road (2006), won the Pulitzer Prize and became a definitive work of post-apocalyptic fiction. Known for his "unpunctuated" style and bleak, philosophical explorations of good and evil, McCarthy remained famously reclusive until his death in 2023. His final novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, were published just months before his passing.

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