Jerome Salinger

J. D. Salinger (1919-2010) was born in New York. He gained literary fame with the publication of a single novel, "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951), whose central character, Holden Caulfield, encapsulated the intense expression of the anxiety of the era's younger generation. The sensation caused by the book and its association with the Beat generation compelled Salinger to leave New York for a home in the distant hills of Cornish, New Hampshire. Prior to this, he had managed to publish several short stories, one of which, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (published in "The New Yorker" in 1949), introduced the character Seymour Glass, who reappears in the books "Franny and Zooey" (1961) and "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters/Seymour: An Introduction" (1963), the only other books Salinger published. Out of approximately 35 short stories he published in various magazines, he allowed those he believed could withstand the test of time to be included in the collection "Nine Stories" (1953). He passed away in January 2010 at his home in New Hampshire from natural causes.