Biography
James Agee was born on November 27, 1909, in Knoxville. When he was five years old his father was killed in an automobile accident. Three years later, in 1916, Agee began his schooling at St. Andrews in Sewanee, Tennessee. In 1924, he returned to Knoxville to attend public high school, but after staying only one year he finished at Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. After his completing secondary education, Agee enrolled at Harvard University in 1928. There he became editor of the Harvard Advocate. He contributed his own poetry, book reviews, and fiction to the magazine. Evident throughout his work was the tragic death of his father. His first position after graduating in 1932 was writing for Fortune magazine.
Agee spent most of his career creating journalistic style writings for various magazines and journals in order to live, but he always had a passion for verse and fiction. His personal book of poetry, Permit Me Voyage, written mostly while at Harvard, was published in 1934. He, and fellow photographer Walker Evans, lived in Alabama to research another great book of verse--Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). Later Agee published a novella titled The Morning Watch (1951), and also served as both book reviewer and film critic for Time and Nation magazines. Because of his growing success as a film critic, he developed many movie scripts throughout his career; two memorable ones The African Queen (1950) and The Night of the Hunter (1954) were critical successes. On May 16, 1955, Agee suffered multiple heart attacks. Later that day he died in the back seat of a taxicab in New York City. After his death, his novel A Death In the Family (1957) received the Pulitzer Prize in 1960.
Bibliography
Fiction
Poetry
Screenplays
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