John Barth was an author known for postmodern novels like “The Sot-Weed Factor” and “Giles Goat-Boy.”
- Died: April 2, 2024 (Who else died on April 2?)
- Details of death: Died at a hospice facility in Bonita Springs, Florida at the age of 93.
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John Barth’s legacy
“The Sot-Weed Factor” was Barth’s breakthrough, his third novel and the first in a string of postmodernist works. His previous books had been realist novels, and he initially intended the same for “The Sot-Weed Factor,” but its intricate, satirical plot catapulted him into the genre that would make him famous. It has been ranked among the best English-language novels of its era, and it earned him his reputation as a skilled writer of fiction that straddled the comic and the serious.
Barth followed “The Sot-Weed Factor” with “Giles Goat-Boy,” a satirical Cold War allegory that became a bestseller and a cult classic. Later books included “Chimera,” “LETTERS,” “The Tidewater Tales,” and “Where Three Roads Meet.” He was nominated for the National Book Award for his early novel “The Floating Opera” and for his short story collection “Lost in the Funhouse.” Most recently, Barth published the 2022 collection of short nonfiction “Postscripts.”
In addition to his work as a writer, Barth taught at Pennsylvania State University, Boston University, SUNY Buffalo, and Johns Hopkins University.
Notable quote
“Writers in this country, particularly novelists, are likely to come to the medium through some back door. Nearly every writer I know was going to be something else, and then found himself writing by a kind of passionate default. …You decide to be a violinist, you decide to be a sculptor or a painter, but you find yourself being a novelist.” —from a 1985 interview for the Paris Review
Tributes to John Barth
Full obituary: The New York Times
