Daniel Quinn, best known as the author of Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael, and Providence, died of aspiration pneumonia on February 17, 2018 at Houston Hospice. He was 82.
Houston Chronicle
He had been in hospice care for the past couple of months.
Mr. Quinn is survived by his wife Rennie and their three adult children.
Mr. Quinn is best known as the author of Ishmael, the novel that in 1991 won the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, established to encourage authors to seek "creative and positive solutions to global problems." Ishmael has been in print continuously since its publication in 1992 and has been made available in more than 25 languages. Thoroughout the U.S. and Canada and in other countries as well, Ishmael is used as a text in a broad range of classes that include anthropology, ecology, history, literature, philosophy, ethics, biology, and psychology, at age levels from middle school through graduate level.
He followed Ishmael with an autobiography, Providence (1994), The Story Of B (1996), a novel that continues the philosophical and religious exploration begun in Ishmael; and My Ishmael: A Sequel (1997), in which it's learned that, unbeknownst to the narrator of Ishmael, Ishmael was working with another pupil, a twelve-year-old girl. Other works include Beyond Civilization (1999), a nonfiction work that explores, among other relevant topics, tribal ways of making a living that work here and now; After Dachau (2001), a novel that critics have compared to Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984; The Man Who Grew Young, a graphic novel that tells the unique and fascinating story of a man who lives backward through time and history; The Holy (2002), a metaphysical thriller that has been compared to John Fowles' The Magus (and which won the 2003 Independent Publisher Award for Mystery/Suspense/Thriller of the Year); Tales of Adam (2005), written as part of an early version of the book that ultimately became Ishmael, illustrated by Michael McCurdy; Work, Work, Work, (2006), a children's book with Quinn's own illustrations; and If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways, in which the author investigates the source of his own ideas (which so many readers have found mysteriously alien). His short fiction has appeared in The Quarterly, Asylum, Magic Realism, and elsewhere.
Ishmael Home Page
His works were pivotal to many of us, opening up a deeper and more profound understanding of human beings and their place in the natural world. I vividly remember finding Ishmael on sale in a used book store for a buck, buying it on impulse, and spending the next hour in a coffee shop, going, “holy shit!” over and over. Since then I’ve given away dozens of copies to people.
Rest In Peace, Daniel Quinn.