New York (EFE).- The writer Cormac McCarthy, author of novels such as “The Highway” or “No Country for Old Men”, died at the age of 89, as confirmed by his son John and the publishing house Penguin Random House, which has published his novels in recent years.
John McCarthy said his father died of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in a statement published by journalist Alexandra Alter of The New York Times.
McCarthy had published two novels a little over six months ago, “Stella Maris” and “El Pasajero”, which were sold together, which shows that he has been active almost until the end of his days, although the publisher already made it known then that he was not going to grant any interviews or participate in promotional work.
The Washington Post newspaper defines his novels as “lyrical and often brutally violent”, which did not spare scenes of savagery or tenderness, all in an effort to “explore the dark side of the human soul”.
Some critics had compared his style to that of great American classics such as William Faulkner or Herman Melville.
Cormac McCarthy’s legacy
Throughout his life he published twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays and three short stories. Of the novels, the ones that gave him the most prestige were “Todos los hermosos caballos” (1992, National Book Award and National Critics Award) and “La carretera” (2006, Pulitzer Prize), which recounts an aimless escape from a father with his youngest son in a post apocalyptic world.
However, it was perhaps “No Country for Old Men” (2005) that had the most resonance thanks to the film adaptation by the Coen brothers and the performance of the protagonist Javier Bardem in it, a film that was also recognized with four Oscars.
McCarthy, who lived in Ibiza (Spain) and El Paso, spoke Spanish and it was not uncommon for him to insert dialogue in Spanish without translation into some of his novels; some critics have pointed out that in McCarthy’s prose, Spanish and English modulated each other and that this constituted a differential fact of his style.