William Gaddis
William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. The first and longest of his five novels, The Recognitions, was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two others, J R and A Frolic of His Own, won the annual U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. A collection of his essays was published posthumously as The Rush for Second Place (2002). The Letters of William Gaddis was published by Dalkey Archive Press in February 2013.
Gaddis is widely considered one of the first and most important American postmodern writers.
Biography
Gaddis was born in New York City to William Thomas Gaddis, who worked "on Wall Street and in politics", and Edith (Charles) Gaddis, an executive for the New York Steam Corporation. When he was 3, his parents separated and Gaddis was subsequently raised by his mother in Massapequa, Long Island. At age 5 he was sent to Merricourt Boarding School in Berlin, Connecticut. He continued in private school until the eighth grade, after which he returned to Long Island to receive his diploma at Farmingdale High School in 1941. He entered Harvard in 1941 and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon (where he eventually served as President), but was asked to leave in 1944 due to an altercation with police. He worked as a fact checker for The New Yorker for little over a year (late February 1945 until late April 1946), then spent five years traveling in Mexico, Central America, Spain, France, England, and North Africa, returning to the United States in 1951.
Gaddis, William Filmography
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1970, role: editor
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1967, role: editor
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1967, role: editor
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1967, role: editor
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1967, role: editor
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2013, role: writer
Famous quotes by William Gaddis:
Alma
Atrás en la quietud, que tiñe toda piel
Con los tonos de un final
Dejé al dolor volar, hacia mi libertad
Me cité la eternidad
Mi cuerpo se cansó
Mi vida bostezó
Pero mi mente sigue en pie
No es una cuenta atrás
Es otro ciclo más
Es un principio, no es el fin
Mi alma hoy quiere volar
Ser agua, ser brisa del mar
Y ser la flor que en tu jardín
Trepando llegue hasta ti
Es tan bello saber
Que en tu cuerpo también
Hay fecha de caducidad
Se bien que he de librar
Una batalla más
Que mañana otra habrá
Me puso la salud
Los cuernos con tu dios
Y mi sentencia dictó
En mis tinieblas hay
Una luz que al final
Arrulla mi corazón
Mi alma hoy quiere volar
Ser agua, ser brisa del mar
Y ser la flor que en tu jardín
Trepando llegue hasta ti, hasta ti
Mi alma hoy quiere volar
Romper cadenas y so'ar
Y con tu voz o'rte hablar