Our Daily Dead

Sticking with the category Alex, we’ll take Literature for $1,000….and from Radio Polonia we read that the internationally-renowned Polish journalist and writer Ryszard Kapuscinski has died in a Warsaw hospital at the age of 74.

“Foreign travels took Kapuscinski to many hotbeds of tension and scenes of upheavals. He witnessed 27 revolutions, mostly in Africa where he was Poland’s only foreign correspondent in the 1960s and 70s. Hampered by the constraints of newspaper articles, he soon turned to writing books.”

“One of the best-known of his 19 books, ‘The Emperor’, was an account of the downfall of Ethiopia’s dictator Haile Selassie. For Polish readers, it brought to mind their own totalitarian leaders. ‘The Shah of Shahs’ described the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. In his books, Kapuścinski explored the structure of power in today’s world. “

“The most important problem is that we’re living in the world in which the fruits of progress and development are very unjustly divided, and people, thanks to the TV and the media, the poor people, who are the majority, are feeling very strongly, very deeply this injustice, this situation to be marginalized. And this has produced among them a very strong feeling of frustration, of unhappiness. Eventually of hate and revenge.”

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Ryszard Kapuscinski, died, Warsaw, Haile Selassie, Shah of Iran

Out of the depths of the OC comes word that Barbara Seranella, an auto mechanic-turned mystery writer, died Sunday in Cleveland, Ohio, of end-stage liver disease while awaiting a third liver transplant. She was 50 years old.

“After writing her first book, ‘No Human Involved,’ which was published in 1997 and was No. 5 on the Los Angeles Times best-seller list, she gained popularity for suspense novels based on the adventures of Munch Muncini, a female auto and motorcycle mechanic/detective with a checkered past not unlike that of the author.”

“She went on to see seven more books in that series published. A new book, ‘Deadman’s Switch,’ based on a different character, is expected to be released in April.”

“Born in Santa Monica, Seranella grew up in Pacific Palisades and ran away from home at age 14, joining a hippie commune in San Francisco and riding with an outlaw motorcycle gang known as the Heathens. During that time, she became all too familiar with drugs, alcohol and jail time. She was arrested 13 times for various offenses.”

“At age 22, she got sober and decided to settle down. She worked at an Arco station in Sherman Oaks for five years, then for a Texaco station in Brentwood, where she became service manager and married her boss, Ron Seranella, in 1994. They had homes in Laguna Beach and in La Quinta.”

Her web site - BarbaraSeranella.com has a link to some of her short pieces including her first published bit titled “Biker Wedding”:

“Do you, Michael Sanderson, aka James Sanderson, aka Michael Bennett, aka Randy Ross, aka Driveshaft Randy, aka Crazy Mike,” the preacher asked, “take this mama, Barbara Waller, aka Barbara Sampson, aka Claretta Washington, aka Snaggletooth, aka Crazy Barbara, as your lawfully wedded whatizzit?”

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: OC, Barbara Seranella, mystery writer, died, Munch Muncini, Heathens, drugs, jail time, Brentwood, Laguna Beach, La Quinta

From the Washington Post…Art Buchwald, 81, the newspaper humor columnist for more than a half-century who found new comic material in the issues that come up at the end of life, died of kidney failure last night at his son’s home in Washington, his family announced today.

“Buchwald, an owlish, cigar-chomping extrovert, zinged the high, mighty and humor-challenged. His column, syndicated to more than 550 newspapers at one point, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1982. He also published more than 30 books.”

“Most of his books were collections of his columns, which were syndicated by the Los Angeles Times and appeared in The Washington Post. Two of his books ‘Leaving Home’(1993) and ‘I’ll Always Have Paris!’ (1996) were memoirs. They told the story of his journey from a lonely, impoverished childhood lived largely in foster homes, to the salons of the famous.”

“His entertaining, name-dropping memoirs — published in a period when some said his column was losing its edge — also won him new respect in the publishing world. Although he had been elected in 1991 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he said in a 1996 interview that ‘people don’t take humorists seriously; they don’t even call them writers.’”

“His children, he said, were initially upset with his decision to turn down dialysis treatments last year, but he insisted that he preferred to control his last days, which lasted longer than even he expected.”

“‘I don’t know if this is true or not, but I think some people, not many, are starting to wonder why I’m still around,’ he wrote while in the hospice. ‘In fact, a few are sending me get-well cards. These are the hard ones to answer.”

“‘So far things are going my way. I am known in the hospice as The Man Who Wouldn’t Die. How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don’t know where I’d go now, or if people would still want to see me if I weren’t in a hospice. But in case you’re wondering, I’m having a swell time — the best time of my life.’”

And thanks to Mr. Infospigot for this head’s up!: ‘The New York Times has a great video interview with Buchwald, done last July. He starts out by saying, “Hello, I’m Art Buchwald, and I just died.” It’s four parts, something like 10 or 12 minutes total–good stuff.’

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Washington Post, Art Buchwald, died, kidney failure, Pulitzer Prize

Wilma Dykeman is dead at age 86.

“Her first book, ‘The French Broad River’ written in 1955, was deeply influential on Appalachian writers and was described by one critic as a love poem to the region and its people.”

The French Broad book was part of Wilma Dykemen’s acclaimed “Rivers of America Series,” a group of books that combined environmental activism, folklore and history. The series helped to inspire her fellow authors from the region to look to their heritage for subject matter.

Other books by Wilma Dykeman include “The Tall Woman” from 1966 that covers the life of Lydia McQueen during the Civil War, “The Far Family” also from 1966 and “Return the Innocent Earth” from 1973.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Wilma Dykeman, dead, The French Broad River, Rivers of America Series, The Tall Woman, Lydia McQueen, Civil War, The Far Family, Return the Innocent Earth

Tillie Olsen has died at age 94. She was perhaps best known for “Tell Me A Riddle,” about a long-battling husband and wife who find peace in the crucible of her dying. This story won her the O. Henry Award for best short story in 1961.

“Tell Me A Riddle” was eventually made into a well-regarded 1980 movie staring Melvyn Douglas as the husband David and Lila Kedrova as the dying wife Eva.

By the way Lila Kedrova won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as in the 1964 version of “Zorba the Greek”. And Melvyn Douglas won the Best Actor in a Supporting role for his performance in the 1979 movie “Being There”.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Tillie Olsen, died, Tell Me A Riddle, O. Henry Award, Melvyn Douglas, Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek, Being There