Author+Information

 ** Jerome David ”J. D” Salinger ** was born in Manhattan on New Year’s Day, 1919. Due to his reclusive nature it is often debated how much of what is known about him is actually true. Most of the information found on the author comes from sources close to him, but he has been involved in a series of lawsuits regarding the privacy of his life. What is known is that Salinger had a half-Irish, half-Scottish mother and a Polish Jewish father. He attended several studies and schools through his life. He went to a writing class by the time he was twenty, and managed to write several stories at this point of his life. He also participated in World War II under a counter-intelligence division. It has been suggested that this period of his life affected him majorly, and that he has used experiences from the war in his later writing.

Salinger is mostly known for “The Catcher in the Rye”, but he has published several short stories beyond that book. Salinger has admitted that “Catcher” is sort of auto-biographical in the sense that he felt the same way as Holden Caulfield when he was at that age. But as “Catcher” gained more and more attention, becoming one of the world’s most famous and sold books, Salinger became more and more reserved, refusing to deliver interviews about the book and himself to the media’s great frustration. In fact the only time that Salinger’s appears in the media today, is when he is involved in yet another lawsuit against copyright infringement.

Salinger married Claire Douglas and together they would have two children, Margaret and Matthew. Their marriage was ultimately a happy one, but they had a lot of strife over the issue of religion. Salinger happened to be quite indecisive on which religion to follow, and he regularly and frequently changed to a new one, much to the frustration of his wife, who felt that he used these changes as an excuse for not publishing any new work. It is speculated by her and by the media that Salinger was not coping well under the pressure of writing yet another book of the quality that “Catcher” had.

By Mads, Mette, Christina & Lennart __J.D. Salinger__ - Author Information Jerome David Salinger, J.D. Salinger, born January 1, 1919. He was born and raised in Manhattan, and joined the Valley Forge Military Academy, which is in Wayne, Pennsylvania. After that he attended New York University but dropped out shortly after and with the pressure of his father’s ambitions towards his son, he travelled to Vienna, Austria. He left after a month and went back to Pennsylvania and attended Ursinus College were he also dropped out and went to yet another university, Columbia University, were a man, named Whit Burnett, took Salinger under his wing and helped Salinger publish his first short story, “The Young Folks”. All of this happened between 1919 and 1940. He was just 21 years old when his first short story was published. In 1941 he submitted to the army, he was an active in World War II up until 1946 were he married a woman named Sylvia. They lived in Weissenburg but the marriage fell apart already eight months after they got married. That part of his life isn’t very significant. He published some works, but nothing that meant anything for his career. It was first in 1951 were The Catcher in the Rye was published that the literary world open its eyes to Salinger. That novel was the most intriguing work of all and is still today one of the most famous and known books, if you talk to professors. The novel spent thirty weeks on the New York Times Bestseller. After the novel he “retired”, in the meaning that he drew back and started living as far away from the medias. In 1955 he married again, to Claire Douglas and they had two children. As a side-running show he also changed religious views. He confessed to buddhism, and after his marriage to Claire he changed religious beliefs again and went more to hinduism, which lies very closely to buddhism, but with some various changes and “modifications”. After that he more or less disappeared, but still, because of //the Catcher in the Rye// people kept on visiting him. Both students and professors commented on his book and he became an attraction. He also re-married and had several affairs, so he never really went out of the public light although he tried. Since 1980 J. D. Salinger has tried to avoid public attention and he has not given any interviews in this period.