Troy Smith
Ellen Gilchrist, who won awards for her groundbreaking book Victory Over Japan in the 1980s, has reportedly died at the age of 88. Gilchrist reportedly died after a battle with breast cancer. She died at her home in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
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Interestingly enough, Gilchrist did not begin her writing career until she was in her mid-40s. Legacy.com reports on her career…
Gilchrist studied creative writing with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty (1909–2001) at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, but her writing career didn’t immediately follow. In fact, she taught English literature and creative writing at the University of Arkansas for many years before she published her first book in her mid-40s. That book was the story collection “In the Land of Dreamy Dreams,” a surprise hit for the newly established University of Arkansas Press.
Gilchrist’s career continued to rise with “Victory Over Japan,” a collection of loosely linked stories focusing on women in the South in the years after World War II. She was honored with the National Book Award for Fiction for the collection. Gilchrist continued to explore the lives of Southerners in a dozen other short story collections, as well as in several novels and collections of poetry.
Most recently, Gilchrist published the 2016 essay collection “Things Like the Truth: Out of My Later Years.” Her recent fiction included the 2014 story collection “Acts of God” and her last novel, 2008’s “A Dangerous Age.” Gilchrist continued to teach creative writing at the University of Arkansas during her writing career. She was a commentator on NPR’s “Morning Edition” for a time in the mid-1980s.
https://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/ellen-gilchrist-1935-2024-national-book-award-winning-author/
