American writer Joan Didion dies at 87

Joan Didion, the keen and influential journalist, essayist, novelist and chronicler of the social upheavals of the 1960s, died this Thursday.

He was 87 years old.

Didion's publisher, Penguin Random House, announced Thursday the death of the author, who died of complications from Parkinson's, the company said.

[Axios Latino: The new 'boom' in Latin American literature is female and our list of recommended for the summer]

“Didion was one of the most scathing writers and astute observers in the country.

His successful works of fiction, commentaries and memoirs have received numerous honors and are considered modern classics, ”Penguin Random House said in a statement.

Writer Joan Didion in her New York apartment on September 26, 2005.Kathy Willens / AP

Small and frail even as a young woman, with large sad eyes that were often hidden behind sunglasses and a soft and leisurely speaking style, she once said: “I am so small physically, so discreet in temperament and so neurotically inarticulate. that

.

Didion rose to prominence in the 1960s as one of the pioneers of the "new journalism," which combined traditional reporting techniques with literary style and nonfiction reporting.

And he reigned in the pantheon of "new journalists" along with Tom Wolfe, Nora Ephron and Gay Talese.

[Spanish writer Almudena Grandes dies at 61]

She was known for her cold and ruthless dissection of culture and politics, from the hippies to the presidential campaigns and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, and for her distrust of official stories.

In 2012 she received the National Medal of Humanities after being commended for

His collection of essays

has become a must and reading

(

) and

(

) became essential collections of literary journalism.

From vice president to exiled writer: Nicaraguan talks about his arrest warrant and forbidden book

Oct. 8, 202102: 41

Didion was equally relentless with his own struggles.

At age 30, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and, around the same time, suffered a nervous breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Santa Monica, California, where her worldview was diagnosed as "fundamentally pessimistic, fatalistic and depressive. ".

[Guillermo Arriaga: "The pandemic shook the sewage, there you realize how corrupt the systems are"]

In her 70s, she gave an account of her personal tragedy in the heartbreaking 2005 play

, a narrative about the grief that followed the death of her husband and writing partner, John Gregory Dunne.

He won the National Book Award and adapted it as a one-woman play on Broadway, starring Vanessa Redgrave.

"We have evolved a bit into a society where grief is totally hidden. It has no place in our family. It has no place at all," he told The Associated Press news agency in 2005.