The authors over 80 who shun retirement
Much is made of prodigiously young authors, but writers who continue to produce impressive work into their latter years deserve wider recognition. As Philip Roth announces his retirement, aged 79, here are 11 of the best authors over 80 still working today.
By Ben Bryant30 November 2012 • 15:06 pm
John le Carré - The 81-year-old spy thriller author has enjoyed several high profile (and critically acclaimed) film adaptations of his novels, including The Constant Gardener and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. le Carré announced this week that he will appear for the first time at next year's Telegraph Hay Festival in a rare interview with the acclaimed author.Picture: Rex Features CREDIT: Rex Features
Diana Athill - Although Athill retired from publishing in 1993 aged 75, she continues to write books and articles, winning a Costa Book Award as recently as 2009 for her memoir Somewhere Towards The End. She is now 94.Picture: Francesco Guidicini / Rex Features CREDIT: Francesco Guidicini / Rex Features
Herman Wouk - The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist is perhaps best known for The Caine Mutiny - widely regarded as one of the best depictions of daily life aboard a US ship during the Second World War. He's still going strong at 97.Picture: AP CREDIT: AP
Jane Gardam - Gardam did not publish her first book until she was in her late 30s, but has enjoyed a prolific career since. Her oeuvre includes 12 children's books and nine novels, and she has picked up numerous awards and nominations in the course of her career. Most recently, her novel Old Filth was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction Best Novel in 2005. She is 84.
William Trevor - the three-time Whitbread winner, five-time Booker nominee is regarded as one of the most astute writers still working today, and the 84-year-old's literature has lost none of its lustre. He lives in Devon.Picture: Philip Hollis CREDIT: Philip Hollis
Toni Morrison - her tenth novel, Home, was published this year - as the Nobel Prize-winning author turned 81.Picture: AP CREDIT: AP
Jamil Ahmad - his debut novel has been nominated for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature - one of Asia's most prestigious literary awards - after lying dormant in a drawer for almost 40 years. Ahmad is 81.Picture: FAZUIA MINALLAH CREDIT: FAZUIA MINALLAH
Elmore Leonard - The US novelist and screenwriter has written 29 novels, nine screenplays and numerous other stories and works of non-fiction. His impressive output has mostly been crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into films including Jackie Brown - based on Leonard's Rum Punch. He is 87.Picture: Clara Molden CREDIT: Clara Molden
Tom Wolfe - The journalist and author of The Bonfire of the Vanities, now 81, has enjoyed a prolific career that shows no signs of abating. Perhaps most famous for championing the New Journalism - a movement that incorporated techniques of fiction into the writing of non-fiction - he returned this year with Back to Blood, his first novel in eight years.Picture: AP CREDIT: AP
James Salter - At 87, former US AIr Force pilot Salter has more life experience to weave into his novels than most. One of his best works, The Arm of Flesh, draws extensively on his experiences flying with the 36th Fighter-Day Wing at Bitburg Base, Germany, between 1954 and 1957. Another highly acclaimed novel, A Sport And A Pastime, is a completely different affair. He continues to be recognised for his contributions to literature, this year winning the 25th PEN/Malamud Award for works that show readers "how to work with fire, flame, the laser, all the forces of life at the service of creating sentences that spark and make stories burn".Picture: Getty Images CREDIT: Getty Images
Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Originally from New York, the poet Ferlinghetti worked as a journalist and later, in San Francisco, a publisher of Beat Generation writers including Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams. Ferlinghetti's own style is very unlike that of the original NY Beat circle, though, and he did not share the beat lifestyle. His poetry is much more lyrical and indebted to modernists like T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and e. e. cummings. His most famous poem, Just As I Used To Say, was published when Ferlinghetti was 57. He is 93.Picture: Getty Images CREDIT: Getty Images
Crime master writer John le Carré will make his debut at the Telegraph Hay Festival 2013 it was announced this weekPicture: Rex Features CREDIT: Rex Features
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