J. D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City and grew up in Manhattan. His father imported cheese and meat. He did poorly at several schools, finished at Valley Forge Military Academy, and took a writing class at Columbia University.

In World War II he landed at Utah Beach on D-Day and fought through the Hürtgen Forest. He carried early chapters of his novel with him through the war. In 1945 he spent time in a hospital for combat stress. In 1948 The New Yorker published his story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", and the magazine printed most of his later work.

The Catcher in the Rye (1951) follows Holden Caulfield, sixteen, over three days in New York after he is expelled from school. Holden calls the adult world phony, but the book shows that his anger covers grief for his dead brother and a fear of growing up. It became one of the most taught and most banned books in American schools.

Salinger disliked fame. In 1953 he moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, and he published nothing new after 1965. He died there in 2010, aged 91.