John Kennedy

John Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, born in 1937. He studied at Tulane University and later at Columbia, and he also taught English at colleges in Louisiana and New York.

While serving in the Army in Puerto Rico, he began work on A Confederacy of Dunces, the novel that would make his name. The book was not published during his lifetime, and Toole died in 1969 at just 31.

After his death, his mother helped bring the manuscript to novelist Walker Percy, who played a key role in getting it published. A Confederacy of Dunces went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, turning Toole into one of literature's most famous posthumous success stories.