Author JD Salinger dies aged 91

In a statement from the author's literary representative, his son said Salinger died of natural causes at his home. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, New Hampshire. The Catcher in the Rye with its immortal teenage protagonist - the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield - was published in 1951 during the time of anxious, Cold War conformity. Salinger wrote for adults, but teenagers all over the world identified with the novel's themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy. In later years, Salinger became famous for not wanting to be famous, refusing interviews. He had not published a new work since 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. Jerome David Salinger was born on New Year's Day, 1919, in New York, the only son of a food importer, Solomon Salinger. His mother, Miriam, was of Scotch-Irish descent and he had an older sister, Doris. Although Salinger wrote a number of celebrated novellas and a collection of short stories following The Catcher in the Rye, they were largely overshadowed by the fame and popularity of his novel. Last year the author initiated legal proceedings to block the publication of a supposed sequel to the novel entitled, 60 Years Later: Coming through the Rye. A US judge blocked author Fredrik Colting and Windupbird Publishing from releasing the book in a preliminary injunction, ruling that it borrowed 'quite extensively' from the original and did not qualify as a parody. www.ireland.com