Robert A. Scalapino (1919-2011) died on November 1st at the age of 92. He was a scholar of Asian politics, so well-respected, that the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars created the Scalapino Prize in 2010 to honor outstanding scholars in the field of Asian studies. An author of numerous books about Vietnam, China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, including Parties and Politics in Contemporary Japan (JQ1698 .A1 S37) and The Japanese Communist Movement, 1920-1966 (JQ1698 .K9 S27), he rose to prominence as a defender of the United States policy during the Vietnam War. His New York Times obituary can be found here.
Michael Hastings (1937-2011) died on November 19th at the age of 74. He was a British playwright, best known for his 1984 play Tom & Viv. The play, which Hastings later helped adapt into a critically acclaimed film, told the fictionalized story of writer T.S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot. The play created a controversy over the fictionalizing of the lives of real people. His New York Times and playbill.com obituaries can be found here and here respectively.
Ruth Stone (1915-2011) died on November 19th at the age of 96. She was an award-winning poet and creative writing teacher. Among the awards she won were the 2002 National Book Award for Poetry for In the Next Galaxy, the 2002 Wallace Stevens Award, the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award for Ordinary Words, and the 1965 Shelley Memorial Award. Her 2009 collection, What Love Comes to: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Biographies, criticism, and examples of her work can be found at the Poetry Foundation and poetry.org sites. Her New York Times obituary can be found here.
Shelagh Delaney (1938-2011) died on November 20th at the age of 72. She was a British playwright, best-known for her debut work, A Taste of Honey, a play she wrote as a teenager. While she wrote several other plays including The Lion in Love (PR6007 .E327 L5 1961), none of them ever garnered the praise that her debut did. Her New York Times and playbill.com obituaries can be found here and here, respectively.
Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011) died on November 21st at the age of 85. She was an award-winning American-born Irish fantasy and science fiction author, best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. The series, started in 1967, spans 22 novels and a number of short stories. Beginning in 2003, McAffrey’s son Todd began writing the series, sometimes as a solo author, sometimes as a co-author with his mother. Works from the series have won or been finalists for the most prestigious awards in the genre. “Dragonrider” won the 1969 Nebula Award for Best Novella from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. “Weyr Search” won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Novella from the World Science Fiction Society and “Dramatic Mission” was a finalist for the same award in 1970. Five novels from the series were finalists for Best Novel, Dragonquest in 1972, The White Dragon in 1979, Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern in 1984, and All the Weyrs of Pern in 1992. Additionally, in 2004 McCaffrey was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, and in 2006 was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her New York Times obituary can be found here.
