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Pulitzer winner Terkel dies at 96
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel has died at his home in
Chicago, aged 96, his son has announced.
He was renowned for relating US history through personal stories from a
cross-section of society in books such as Working and Division Street:America.
Born Louis Terkel, he won a Pulitzer in 1985 for his chronicling of World War
II in his oral history, The Good War.
"My dad led a long, full, eventful, sometimes tempestuous, but very
satisfying life," his son said.
For four decades, Studs Terkel entertained listeners on his Chicago-based
radio show.
Born in 1912 in New York to Russian Jewish parents, Studs Terkel moved with
his parents to Chicago, Illinois, eight years later where he spent most of his
life.
His prodigious career spanned acting, writing and broadcasting, but it was
for his oral histories that he became best-known.
In his 1970 book Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, the
writer assembled recollections from across the socio-economic spectrum, from
prison inmates to the wealthy.
Terkel's working methods were perhaps best illustrated by the subtitle of
Working, published in 1974: "People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They
Feel About What They Do".
