Writer Tom Wolfe, who penned several books including The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities, died Monday in Manhattan, N.Y., at 88.
Wolfe’s agent, Lynn Nesbit, confirmed Wolfe passed away after he was hospitalized in Manhattan with an infection, the New York Times reported.
“He is not just an American icon, but he had a huge international literary reputation,” Nesbit said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “All the same, he was one of the most modest and kindest people I have ever met. I never exchanged a cross word with him in our many years of working together.”
Born in Richmond, Va., Wolfe went on to live in New York for more than 50 years. He worked as a reporter at the New York Herald Tribune, as well as for local newspapers and New York Magazine.
Wolfe wrote nine nonfiction books in a span of 20 years, including The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The Right Stuff chronicled the American astronauts selected for the Mercury space program and was later adopted into a feature film in 1983.
A pioneer of New Journalism, Wolfe also wrote essays and magazine articles for New York, Harper’s, and Esquire.
“I realized very early in my life that I wanted to be a writer. I think I was 6 years old,” Wolfe told Time magazine in 2008.
He is survived by his wife, Sheila, and two children, Alexandra and Tommy.
