John Kennedy Toole
John Kennedy Toole was born in 1937 in New Orleans.
He completed his masterpiece, A Confederacy of Dunces, while serving in the army but was unable to get it published during his lifetime.
Struggling with depression, Toole committed suicide in 1969 at the age of 31.
His mother persisted in getting the manuscript published, eventually succeeding with the help of novelist Walker Percy.
The book was released in 1980 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, eleven years after Toole's death.
His tragic story and the novel's eventual success have become an integral part of American literary lore.
