Michael Shaara

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Michael Shaara (born June 23, 1928 in Jersey City , New Jersey , † May 5, 1988 in Tallahassee , Florida ) was an American novelist, best known for his historical novel "The Killer Angels" on the Civil War .

The Italian-American (his family was originally called Sciarra) attended Rutgers University in New Jersey and, after graduating in 1951, served as a paratrooper officer in the Korean War . Shaara processed these experiences (and the reintegration time after his return home) in his novel "The Broken Place" (New American Library, 1968, McGraw Hill 1981). He then worked as an amateur boxer and police officer before he started in the 1950s, writing for science fiction magazines, collected in his 1982 short story book "Soldier Boy" - the title comes from a short story by 1953 from the magazine Galaxy - the also received some awards. During the day he taught English, creative writing and literature at Florida State University in Tallahassee - at night he wrote novels and short stories, e.g. B. in Playboy , the Saturday Evening Post and the Cosmopolitan were published. He became known for his 1974 very successful novel "The Killer Angels", which deals with the events of the four-day Battle of Gettysburg , and for which he surprisingly received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book describes what happened from the perspective of the commanding officers and is based in part on the memoirs of General James Longstreet , who had campaigned in vain against the loss-making frontal attack ("Pickett's Charge") ordered by Robert E. Lee , which decided the battle . The book significantly shaped today's view of the battle in the American public, especially since it served as a template for the film " Gettysburg " (1993) by Ronald F. Maxwell . The novel was not a success during Shaara's lifetime - it was only after the feature film opened in 1993 that it landed at number 1 on the New York Times bestseller lists. In 2001 it had a circulation of over 3 million.

The novel was expanded by his son Jeff Shaara (* 1952) into a civil war novel trilogy with "Gods and Generals" (1996), which deals with the time before Gettysburg, and "The Last Full Measure" (1998), which deals with the Time after Gettysburg turns.

His last novel "For Love of the Game" was published posthumously by his son in 1991 and is about an aging baseball player who sees the end of his career. It was in 1999 by Sam Raimi with Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston in the lead role filmed . Shaara also published science fiction novels ("The Noah Conspiracy" 1981, first published as "The Herald").

In 1988 he died after a heart attack - 23 years after the chain smoker had his first attack at the age of 36.

Michael Shaara Prize for Civil War Fiction

Since 1997, a $ 2,500 Michael Shaara Prize for Civil War Fiction has been awarded annually by the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. Prize winners were:

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/984/000117633/
  2. ↑ after 15 publishers rejected the manuscript, it was published by the small publisher David McKay Company, later taken over by Random House
  3. ↑ filmed in 2003 by Ronald Maxwell, Gods and Generals
  4. ↑ completed in 1981, but no publisher was found
personal data
SURNAME Shaara, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American novelist
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Jersey City , New Jersey, USA
DATE OF DEATH May 5, 1988
Place of death Tallahassee