David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 - September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He was best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest.
Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York to James Donald Wallace and Sally Foster Wallace. James Wallace had recently finished his Ph.D. at Cornell University; the family soon relocated to central Illinois, where James found work as a philosophy instructor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1962. Sally attended graduate school in English Composition at the University of Illinois and eventually became a professor of English at Parkland College, a community college in Champaign, where she won a national Professor of the Year award in 1996. Wallace's younger sister, Amy, has practiced law in Arizona since 2005.
As an adolescent, Wallace was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He attended his father's alma mater, Amherst College, and double-majored in English and philosophy, with a focus on modal logic and mathematics. His philosophy senior thesis on modal logic was awarded the Gail Kennedy Memorial Prize, and he graduated summa cum laude in 1985. He next pursued an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona, which he earned in 1987.
CLAREMONT, Calif. - David Foster Wallace, the author best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead in his home, according to police. He was 46.
Wallace's wife found her husband had hanged himself when she returned home about 9:30 p.m. Friday, said Jackie Morales, a records clerk with the Claremont Police Department.
Wallace taught creative writing and English at nearby Pomona College.
"He cared deeply for his students and transformed the lives of many young people," said Dean Gary Kates. "It's a great loss to our teaching faculty."
Wallace's first novel, "The Broom of the System," gained national attention in 1987 for its ambition and offbeat humor. The New York Times said the 24-year-old author "attempts to give us a portrait, through a combination of Joycean word games, literary parody and zany picaresque adventure, of a contemporary America run amok."
Published in 1996, "Infinite Jest" cemented Wallace's reputation as a major American literary figure. The 1,000-plus-page tome, praised for its complexity and dark wit, topped many best-of lists. Time Magazine named "Infinite Jest" in its issue of the "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005."
Wallace received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 1997.
In 2002, Wallace was hired to teach at Pomona in a tenured English Department position endowed by Roy E. Disney. Kates said when the school began searching for the ideal candidate, Wallace was the first person considered.
"The committee said, 'we need a person like David Foster Wallace.' They said that in the abstract," Kates said. "When he was approached and accepted, they were heads over heels. He was really the ideal person for the position."
Wallace's short fiction was published in Esquire, GQ, Harper's, The New Yorker and the Paris Review. Collections of his short stories were published as "Girl With Curious Hair" and "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men."
He wrote nonfiction for several publications, including an essay on the U.S. Open for Tennis magazine and a profile of the director David Lynch for Premiere.
Born in Ithaca, N.Y., Wallace attended Amherst College and the University of Arizona.
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