NEW YORK mayor Michael Bloomberg has led tributes to Angela's Ashesauthor Frank McCourt, describing him as a great New York writer who captured the heart of the city.
McCourt, who had spent almost 30 years teaching in New York’s public schools, died at a hospice in the city on Sunday aged 78. He had suffered from meningitis and metastatic melanoma.
“Frank arrived in New York from Limerick with nothing and – like so many Irish immigrants before him – worked to build a better life here,” Mr Bloomberg said. “He shared his gift for teaching with thousands of New York City public schoolchildren and when he retired, he shared his gift for storytelling with the world.”
Congressman Joe Courtney, a Connecticut Democrat for whom McCourt campaigned during a tight election race in 2006, yesterday introduced a resolution in Congress honouring the writer.
“His perspective on two of the most important issues facing the country, immigration and education, have so much meaning for our country and it’s very appropriate that the US Congress recognises him,” Mr Courtney said.
His brother Malachy said: “He had lost his hearing and his eyesight was a bit wobbly as well, but the sense of whimsy was intact. Until the end of his days he had that whimsy and it was great.”
His brother would like to have been remembered as “a teacher with a sense of humour” and he would have been “vastly amused” by the huge outpouring of tributes that greeted him on his death.
Born in Brooklyn in 1930, McCourt returned to Limerick with his family at the age of four but moved back to New York when he was 19, working in a hotel and as a labourer before a brief stint in the US army as a dog trainer and a clerk in West Germany.
He started teaching in the late 1950s after earning a degree in English from New York University, using an unorthodox approach that encouraged pupils to grade their own work and urging them to draw on their own experience to write creatively.
It was not until he was in his 60s that McCourt took his own advice by telling the story of his tough upbringing in Limerick in Angela's Ashes, which sold more than six million copies, was translated into 32 languages and was made into a film. Two further best-selling memoirs followed – 'Tis in 1999 and Teacher Man in 2005.
In a full-page obituary yesterday, the New York Timessaid critics were "enchanted by McCourt's language and gripped by his story", delivering ecstatic reviews that turned him into an instant celebrity.
"The wonderful thing about Frank is that it didn't change him at all and he became a hugely beloved figure in New York, really because of his work on behalf of other writers," Irish Voicepublisher Niall O'Dowd said.
“I think what he was best known for was just being Frank, with this incredible, low-key, deadpan humour, a wonderful supporter for young writers. Success actually improved him, which is highly unusual in this world.”
McCourt was cremated yesterday and his family will have a private gathering in New York this week, followed by a public celebration of his life in September.