John Kennedy Toole

John Kennedy Toole was born in New Orleans in 1937 and passed away in 1969. He pursued graduate studies in English Literature at Columbia University and taught at Hunter College and the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He wrote "A Confederacy of Dunces" in the early 1960s, but, disheartened by his inability to get it published, he took his own life. It was only through the persistence of his mother, who firmly believed in her son's genius, that the book found the audience it deserved and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.