(1934-12-05)December 5, 1934 Sacramento, California, U.S.
Died
December 23, 2021(2021-12-23) (aged 87) New York City, U.S.
Occupation
Novelist
journalist
memoirist
essayist
Education
University of California, Berkeley (BA)
Period
1956–2021
Subject
Memoir
drama
Literary movement
New Journalism[1]
Notable works
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
Play It as It Lays (1970)
The White Album (1979)
The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
Spouse
John Gregory Dunne
(m. 1964; died 2003)
Children
Quintana Roo Dunne
Relatives
Dominick Dunne (brother-in-law)
Griffin Dunne (nephew)
Dominique Dunne (niece)
Joan Didion (/ˈdɪdiən/; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism along with Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe.[2][3][4]
Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine.[5] Didion wrote essays for The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Esquire, The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle, and the history and culture of California. Didion's political writing in the 1980s and 1990s concentrated on the subtext of political rhetoric and the United States's foreign policy in Latin America.[6][7] In 1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted.[5] In 2005, Didion won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. She later adapted the book into a play that premiered on Broadway in 2007. In 2013, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by president Barack Obama.[8] Didion was profiled in the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold, directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne, in 2017.
^Menand, Louis (August 17, 2015). "The Radicalization of Joan Didion". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved October 31, 2017. "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" is a classic of what was later named the New Journalism.
^Heller, Nathan (December 23, 2021). "What Joan Didion Saw". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
^"Joan Didion, peerless prose stylist, dies at 87". AP News. December 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
^Kirkpatrick, Emily (December 23, 2021). "Joan Didion, Literary Titan, Dies at 87". Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
^ ab"From The Archive: Joan Didion On Hollywood, Her Personal Style & The Central Park 5". British Vogue. February 19, 2020. Archived from the original on February 19, 2021. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
^Bacharach, Jacob. "Joan Didion Cast Off the Fictions of American Politics". The New Republic. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
^Ramos, Santiago. "Vanities Come to Dust". Commonweal. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
^Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
JoanDidion (/ˈdɪdiən/; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism...
This is a list of works by and on American author JoanDidion. Run, River (1963) ISBN 978-0679752509 Play It as It Lays (1970) ISBN 978-0374529949 A Book...
ways. In the late 1950s, he met JoanDidion in New York City, where she was an editor at Vogue. In a 2005 interview, Didion recalled, "We amused each other...
writer, and actor. He is also a nephew of writers John Gregory Dunne and JoanDidion. Raised in Los Angeles, Dunne attended the Fay School in Southborough...
The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), by JoanDidion (1934–2021), is an account of the year following the death of the author's husband John Gregory Dunne...
Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a 1968 collection of essays by JoanDidion that mainly describes her experiences in California during the 1960s. It takes...
Play It as It Lays is a 1970 novel by American writer JoanDidion. Time magazine included the novel in its list of the "100 Best English-Language Novels...
author JoanDidion, first published in 2011. The memoir is an account of the death of Didion's daughter, Quintana, who died in 2005 at age 39. Didion also...
Didion is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: JoanDidion (1934–2021), American writer John Didion (1947–2013), American football player...
life insurance policy pay double the face value for accidental deaths. JoanDidion wrote a 1966 essay about the case, "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream"...
A Book of Common Prayer is a 1977 novel by JoanDidion. A limited signed edition of this book was issued by Franklin library. The novel is a story of...
lecturer in Economics at the SOAS South Asia Institute. She considers JoanDidion and Michael Ondaatje her favourite literary heroes. She was born in Colombo...
(in his first lead role) and Kitty Winn. The screenplay was written by JoanDidion and John Gregory Dunne, adapted from the 1966 novel by James Mills. The...
is a 2017 non-fiction book authored by JoanDidion, with a preface by Nathaniel Rich. It is based on notes Didion took while traveling in Mississippi, Alabama...
Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc [ʒan daʁk]; Middle French: Jehanne Darc [ʒəˈãnə ˈdark]; c. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as...
Dunne (1932–2003), a screenwriter and a critic who married the writer JoanDidion. The brothers wrote a column for The Saturday Evening Post and they also...
Ruskin, and Henry David Thoreau. Some 20th-century writers, such as JoanDidion and New Journalists such as Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, have also been...
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