James A. Michener

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James Albert Michener (February 3, 1907 - October 16, 1997) was an American author of more than 40 titles, the majority which are novels of sweeping sagas covering the lives of many generations in a particular geographic locale and incorporating historical facts into the story as well.

Michener's major novels include Tales of the South Pacific (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948), Hawaii, The Drifters, Centennial, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Chesapeake, Caribbean, Caravans, Alaska, Texas, and Poland. His nonfiction works include his 1968 Iberia about his travels in Spain and Portugal, his 1992 memoir The World is My Home, and Sports in America.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Education 1.2 Writing career 1.3 Spouses 1.4 Charity 1.5 Awards 1.6 Final years and death 2 Works 3 Quotes 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] History

Michener wrote that he did not know who his parents were or exactly when and where he was born. He was raised a Quaker by an adoptive mother, Mabel Michener, in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Some people later argued that Mabel was in fact his biological mother but he refused to talk about that.

In 1960, Michener was chairman of the Bucks County (Pa.) committee to elect John F. Kennedy, and subsequently, in 1962, ran for congress, a decision he now considers a misstep. "My mistake was to run in 1962 as a Democrat candidate for Congress. [My wife] kept saying, "Don't do it, don't do it." I lost and went back to writing books."

[edit] Education

Michener graduated with highest honors from Swarthmore College, where he played basketball, in 1929. He taught English at George School, in Newtown, Pennsylvania, 1933-36, then attended Colorado State Teachers College (in Greeley, Colorado), earned his master's degree, and then taught there for several years. He also taught at Harvard University.

[edit] Writing career

Michener's writing career began during World War II, when as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, he was assigned to the South Pacific Ocean as a naval historian; he later turned his notes and impressions into Tales of the South Pacific, his first book, which was the basis for the Broadway and film musical South Pacific. It was published when he was 40. South Pacific would precede other movies and television series in the 1960s such as PT 109, McHale's Navy and Gilligan's Island in a similar setting.

In the late 1950s, Michener began working as a roving editor for Readers Guide. He gave up that work in 1970.

Michener was a very popular writer during his lifetime and his novels sold an estimated 75 million copies worldwide [1]. His novel Hawaii (published in 1959) was based on extensive historical research. Nearly all of his subsequent novels were based on detailed historical, cultural, and even geological research. Centennial, which documented several generations of families in the West was made into a popular twelve part television miniseries of the same name that aired on NBC from October 1978 through February 1979.

In 1996, State House Press published "James A. Michener: A Bibliography" compiled by David A. Groseclose. It contains over 2,500 entries from 1923 to 1995 including magazine articles, forewords, books, and other works.

[edit] Spouses

He was married three times. His second wife was Vange Nord (married in 1948). Michener met his third wife Mari Yoriko Sabusawa at a luncheon in Chicago and they were married in 1955 (the same year as his divorce from Nord). His novel Sayonara is pseudo-autobiographical.

[edit] Charity

Having no children, Michener gave away a great deal of the money he earned, contributing more than $100 million to universities, libraries, museums, and other charitable causes.

[edit] Awards

In 1948, Michener won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Tales of the South Pacific.

On January 10, 1977, Michener was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Gerald R. Ford.

[edit] Final years and death

In his final years, he lived in Austin, Texas, and, aside from being a prominent celebrity fan of the Texas Longhorns women's basketball team, he founded an MFA program now named the Michener Center for Writers.

In October 1997, Michener ended the daily dialysis treatment that had kept him alive for four years and as a result he died not long after. He was 90 years old.

[edit] Works

• A Century of Sonnets (1997)
• About Centennial: Some Notes on the Novel (1978)
• Alaska (1988)
• The Bridge at Andau (1957)
• The Bridges at Toko-Ri, movie (1953)
• Caravans (1963)
• Caribbean (1989)
• Centennial, TV miniseries (1974)
• Chesapeake (1978)
• Collectors, Forgers - And A Writer: A Memoir (1983)
• The Covenant (1980)
• Creatures of the Kingdom (1993)
• The Drifters (1971)
• The Eagle and The Raven (1990)
• The Fires of Spring (1949), semi-autobiographical novel
• The Floating World (1954)
• The Future of the Social Studies ("The Problem of the Social Studies") (1939) Editor
• Hawaii (1959)
• Iberia (1968)
• Journey (1989)
• Kent State: What Happened and Why (1971)
• Legacy (1987)
• Literary Reflections (1993)
• Mexico (1992)
• Miracle in Seville (1995)
• My Lost Mexico (1992)
• The Novel (1991)
• Pilgrimage: A Memoir of Poland and Rome (1990)
• Poland (1983)
• Presidential Lottery (1969)
• The Quality of Life (1970)
• Rascals in Paradise (1957)
• Recessional (1994)
• Report of the Country Chairman (1961)
• Return to Paradise (1951)
• Sayonara (1954)
• Six Days in Havana (1989)
• The Source (1965)
• Space (1982)
• Sports in America (1976)
• Tales of the South Pacific, South Pacific musical, film (1947)
• Texas (1985)
• This Noble Land (1996)
• Ventures in Editing
• The Voice of Asia (1951)
• William Penn (1994)
• The World is My Home (1992)
• Years of Infamy

[edit] Quotes

• "I am right now in the middle of a difficult writing project. And it's just as difficult now as when I started. But when I get up in the morning I am really qualified to say, 'Well, Jim, it isn't going too well, but there is nobody on the block who is better able to wrestle with it than you are, so lets get on with it."

• "I think young people ought to seek that experience that is going to knock them off center."

• "I had been educated with free scholarships. I went to nine different universities, always at public expense, and when you have that experience, you are almost obligated to give it back. It's as simple as that."

• "I decided (after listening to a "talk radio" commentator who abused, vilified, and scorned every noble cause to which I had devoted my entire life that) I was both a humanist and a liberal, each of the most dangerous and vilified type. I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create a reasonably decent society. I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril. I do not believe that pure reason can solve the perceptual problems unless it is modified by poetry and art and social vision. So I am a humanist. And if you want to charge me with being the most virulent kind—a secular humanist—I accept the accusation."—Interview, Parade magazine, November 24, 1991.

[edit] See also

• List of bestselling novels in the United States
• Edward Rutherfurd

[edit] External links

• Published books with covers
• James A. Michener Library at the University of Northern Colorado
• James A. Michener Society
• James A. Michener Special Collection: David A. Groseclose
• James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA
• Michener Center for Writers
• 1989 audio interview with James Michener by Don Swaim