David Foster Wallace

21/02/1968 – 12/09/2008. Probably my favourite writer of the last twenty years, he hung himself a year ago today. I just finished re-reading his 1996 masterpiece Infinite Jest, a book so fanatically loved that it inspired a worldwide re-reading project this year (yes, I am one of them, what a geek).

Wallace’s non-fiction was at least as good as his novels, this article on Roger Federer is a brilliant example. The article was written for Play, a quarterly sports magazine from the New York Times with an ethos of fantastic writing and analysis. Needless to say, it bombed and was shelved. What does that tell you, about the public, at large?

Here’s a brilliant article about DFW from Rolling Stone. Reference is made to Wallace’s friend (and Rolling Stone writer) Evan Wright, wh0 wrote the fantastic Generation Kill, made for HBO by David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Here’s a fantastic (very lengthy!) article from the New Yorker Magazine.

Round the world, there will be people reading that and nodding their heads.

Wallace’s novels; The Broom of the System, Infinite Jest, The Pale King (incomplete, rumoured to be released in some form next year).

Short story collections; Girl with the Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion: Stories.

Non-fiction; Signifying Rappers, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, Up Simba, Everything and More, Consider the Lobster.

R.I.P.