Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo was born to an Italian-American family in the Bronx in 1936, the eldest of eleven children. The family lived in close quarters and spoke a mixture of Italian and English, often combining the two. A child content with playing for hours in the streets, it wasn’t until DeLillo was in his late teens that he began writing, and even then he was not particularly serious about the craft. Nonetheless, he slowly became a voracious reader, a habit that consumed him throughout his 20s and into his 30s. Unable to find a job in publishing, he worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency in Midtown, a position he eventually left because he no longer found it interesting. At this point, he began writing novels, and although his first efforts won him praise in the literary community, it was only after the publication of White Noise that his books began to reach wider audiences. He has now published 17 novels, numerous short stories and essays, five plays, and one screenplay.