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Frank McCourt

Teacher and memoirist; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography

Ireland · 1930–2009

Irish-American teacher and writer who taught in New York public schools for thirty years and won the Pulitzer Prize for Angela's Ashes, a memoir of his Limerick childhood.

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Question What is your greatest fear? Identity & self read 254 other answers →
It was desperate because of certain things, ingredients like my father being an alcoholic, my mother having too many babies in too short a time, no work available in Ireland, and even when my father did get a job he drank the wages. Then there was the harsh kind of schooling we had with school masters who ruled with a stick and then because of the overwhelming presence of the church, which imbued us with fear all the time. So it was fear, dampness, poverty, alcoholism, fear of the church, fear of the school masters, fear in general.

Recorded Academy of Achievement, Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 19 June 1999 source ↗

Question Which writers or artists most influenced your work? Taste & recommendation read 40 other answers →
The last teacher I had was a man named O’Halloran. But he was the only one who offered words of encouragement, who told us we were distinct, unique individuals with a right to think for ourselves. And that was just before we left Leamy’s National School. And he told me, “My boy, you are a literary genius.” And you can imagine what I had to put up with at the schoolyard with all the others. “Hey, McCourt, you’re a literary genius. Look at him. Look at the literary genius.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 19 June 1999 source ↗

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