News and Music Discovery
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

'Infinite Jest' Author David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace once described his essays as "experiential postcards."
Keith Bedford
/
Getty Images
David Foster Wallace once described his essays as "experiential postcards."

Acclaimed novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace, 46, was found dead in his home Sept. 12; reports attribute his death to suicide.

His 1996 novel Infinite Jest was a critical and popular success, while in recent years he has written short-stories and nonfiction. And he wrote a celebrated Rolling Stone profile of John McCain in 2000; it was revised and this year as McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express With John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope.

Wallace was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1997. Fresh Air remembers him with an excerpt from an interview that initially aired on March 5 of that year.

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.