We’re barely into the year and it’s proving to be a sad year for book lovers as well as music and film lovers. Not only have we lost David Bowie and Alan Rickman but we’ve also lost a wide range of writers world-wide. Some have been young and just starting out while others have been old, and while we expect people to die the shock is still palpable.
Today I’m paying tribute to those who have died in the first few weeks of this year whether I’ve previously heard of them or not. Some of them are journalists rather than authors and I’ve mostly not put in the cartoonists. Where I can I’ve included a link so you can buy a book by that author, each purchase using this link will give me a small percentage in affiliate fees (or as I prefer to put it, squillions of cents, actually 7.5% at present) and I’ll write something more about this in due course. I’m grateful to people for compiling this information on Wikipedia.
Vale to these people, condolences to their friends and family.
Fazu Aliyeva, 83, Russian Avar poet and journalist, heart failure.
Frances Cress Welsing, 80, American psychiatrist and author, complications from a stroke.
C. B. Forgotston, 70, American lawyer and political blogger, suicide by gunshot.
Marjorie Pizer, 95, Australian poet.
Zelimkhan Yaqub, 65, Azerbaijani poet.
Stanley Mann, 87, Canadian scriptwriter (The Collector, Conan the Destroyer, Firestarter).
John Stevens, 86, British journalist.
Carolyn D. Wright, 67, American poet.
Robert Banks Stewart, 84, Scottish television writer (Doctor Who, Bergerac, Shoestring), cancer.
Michel Tournier, 91, French writer (Friday, The Erl-King).
Edmonde Charles-Roux, 95, French writer.
George Weidenfeld, Baron Weidenfeld, 96, Austrian-born British publisher, philanthropist, and newspaper columnist.
Tahsin Yücel, 83, Turkish writer.
Nikolay Abramov, 54, Russian Vepsian writer and translator.
Zaw Zaw Aung, 79, Burmese author and public intellectual.
Margaret Rylatt, British author and archaeologist for Coventry City Council (1973–2000), led reconstruction of Lunt Roman Fort.
Carles Hac Mor, 76, Spanish Catalan writer.
Nayani Krishnakumari, 85, Indian writer and folklorist.
Linus Maurer, 90, American cartoonist, inspiration for the name Linus Van Pelt, the character from Peanuts.
Dov Yermiya, 101, Israeli army officer and author.
Gillian Avery, 89, British children’s novelist and historian.
Dag Gundersen, 88, Norwegian linguist and lexicographer, author of several dictionaries in Norwegian.
Intizar Hussain, 92, Pakistani writer.
Edith Skom, 86, American novelist.
Andrew Glaze, 95, American poet.
Juliette Benzoni, 95, French novelist.
Margaret Forster, 77, English novelist (Georgy Girl) and biographer, cancer.
Norman Hudis, 93, English screenwriter (Carry On).
Mildred Shapley Matthews, 100, American science writer.
Naushaba Burney, 83, Pakistani journalist.
Yan Su, 85, Chinese playwright and lyricist, cerebral infarction.
Bergljot Hobæk Haff, 90, Norwegian novelist.
Bud Webster, 63, American science fiction and fantasy writer.
Claude Jeancolas, 66, French author.
Akbar Kakkattil, 62, Indian writer, lung cancer.
Rosario Ferré, 77, Puerto Rican writer, poet, and essayist, First Lady of Puerto Rico.
Chiaki Morosawa, 56, Japanese anime screenwriter (Mobile Suit Gundam SEED), aortic dissection
Harper Lee, 89, American author (To Kill a Mockingbird).
Umberto Eco, 84, Italian philosopher and novelist (The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, Numero Zero), pancreatic cancer.
Cara McCollum, 24, American journalist and beauty queen, Miss New Jersey (2013), traffic collision.
John Caldwell, 69, American comic strip artist and cartoonist (Mad Magazine)