© Robyn Beck / AFP
SOURCE REUTERS
Gore
Vidal, the elegant American author, died on Tuesday during the night
at his home in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, at the age of 86.
His
nephew Burr Steers said that he died due to complications of
pneumonia, reported the Los Angeles Times.
Born
in West Point in the state of New York as Eugene Luther Vidal Jr , he
later adopted his mother's last name as his first name.
He
started his career very young at the age of 19 years old while he
was still a soldier based in Alaska. His first book, Willsaw,
related his experience during
World War II. But it's with his third book published in 1948, The
City and the Pillar, that he
shook the world by putting into scene a main character gay - a first
in the American literature.
He
has published about 25 novels, two memoirs and several volumes. He
also wrote plays, television dramas and screenplays.
Brilliant,
elegant and egocentric, Gore Vidal was known for his sharps
observations on the American culture, sex, literature and politics.
Gore
Vidal regularly critisized the other authors of his generation:
Truman Capote, for example, has been described by Vidal Gore
as a «filthy animal that has found his way into the house», while
Ernest Hemingway was considered as a «joke».
Considering
the United States as «becoming a boring country», Gore Vidal
pointed out and complained about the decline of what he called the «American Empire»
