by Emily Temple. Flavorpill - Wednesday Jul 11, 2012
This week, we were saddened by the news that beloved 85-year-old Colombian novelist and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez is suffering from dementia and has stopped writing. Though not every can scribble up until the very moment of their death (thought many do), it’s always a little heartbreaking to see the deterioration of such an amazing mind. We’ve put together a list of famous authors that were forced into retirement because of illness, depression or slightly more elusive reasons — check them out and mourn the late-life novels that might have been with us in the comments.
Gabriel García Márquez
Though Márquez has been rumored to be in ill health for some time now, and his publishers hadn’t quite expected any new fiction from him, this is the first official news of his decline. “Dementia runs in our family and he’s now suffering the ravages prematurely due to the cancer that put him almost on the verge of death,” Jaime García Márquez, the author’s brother said. “Chemotherapy saved his life, but it also destroyed many neurons, many defenses and cells, and accelerated the process…. He is no longer writing and is simply living this stage of life in peace. He reads every day and is with his family.”
Iris Murdoch
Shortly after the publication of what would be her last novel, 1995′s Jackson’s Dilemma, legendary Irish-born novelist Murdoch was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which quickly put a stop to her writing. Some critics have even suggested that they could see the onset of the disease in Murdoch’s final novel — while the structure and grammar are unchanged from her previous works, the language is much simpler. Sadly, one biographer wrote that her last years were “a descent into the abyss of Alzheimer’s” ending “a pathetic death [as] a demented old woman in a ‘home’ in Oxford.”
View full story at Flavorpill
Gabriel García Márquez
Though Márquez has been rumored to be in ill health for some time now, and his publishers hadn’t quite expected any new fiction from him, this is the first official news of his decline. “Dementia runs in our family and he’s now suffering the ravages prematurely due to the cancer that put him almost on the verge of death,” Jaime García Márquez, the author’s brother said. “Chemotherapy saved his life, but it also destroyed many neurons, many defenses and cells, and accelerated the process…. He is no longer writing and is simply living this stage of life in peace. He reads every day and is with his family.”
Iris Murdoch
Shortly after the publication of what would be her last novel, 1995′s Jackson’s Dilemma, legendary Irish-born novelist Murdoch was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which quickly put a stop to her writing. Some critics have even suggested that they could see the onset of the disease in Murdoch’s final novel — while the structure and grammar are unchanged from her previous works, the language is much simpler. Sadly, one biographer wrote that her last years were “a descent into the abyss of Alzheimer’s” ending “a pathetic death [as] a demented old woman in a ‘home’ in Oxford.”
View full story at Flavorpill