Walker Percy

Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1916, Walker Percy was trained as a physician at Columbia University. After a year’s internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York, he contracted tuberculosis and abandoned medicine for a literary career. His first novel, The Moviegoer, was awarded the 1962 National Book Award for Fiction. His other books include the novels The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, and The Thanatos Syndrome as well as the collection of essays The Message in the Bottle. Percy died in Covington, Louisiana, in 1990.