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Truman Capote

Truman Capote was a prominent writer of mid 20^th Century American Literature. Among his works are Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958), featuring the iconic character of Holy Golightly, (later made in to a film starring Audrey Hepburn) and In Cold Blood (1965), which immediately became the centre of a storm of controversy upon its publication. In Cold Blood is the reconstruction of the murder of a Kansas farmer and his family in 1959 in which Capote’s combination of journalistic and narrative skill leads to the creation of, what he called, the first ‘non-fiction novel’.

Truman Capote was born in New Orleans in 1925 and was raised in various parts of the South, his family spending winters in New Orleans and summers in Alabama and New Georgia.  By the age of fourteen he had already started writing short stories, some of which were published.  He left school when he was fifteen and subsequently worked for the New Yorker which provided his first - and last - regular job. Many of Capote’s short stories were published in Mademoiselle and Harper’s Bazaar and received literary acclaim.  Following his spell with the New Yorker, Capote spent two years on a Louisiana farm where he wrote his first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). 

Flamboyant and socially ambitious, Capote is often remembered for hosting the extravagant ‘Black and White Ball’ for the social elite of New York. He lived, at one time or another, in Greece, Italy, Africa and the West Indies, and travelled in Russia and the Orient.

He is the author of many highly praised books, including A Tree of Night and Other Stories (1949), The Grass Harp (1951), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958), In Cold Blood (1965), which immediately became the centre of a storm of controversy on its publication, Music for Chameleons (1980) and Answered Prayers (1986), all of which are published by Penguin.

Truman Capote died in August 1984.