Frank McCourt was born on 19th August 1930 in Brooklyn New York. His family moved back to Ireland during the Great Depression, where his alcoholic father, found it difficult to come by and keep a job. After McCourt’s father left Limerick, his mother struggled alone, to bring up Frank and his siblings in abject poverty.
McCourt returned to NewYork in 1949, where he managed to survive doing odd jobs, until he was drafted during The Korean War. On his discharge he managed to bluff his way into New York University, where in 1957 he graduated with a batchelor’s degree in English. He went on to teach at six schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan and earned his master’s degree in 1967.
Frank McCourt’s writing earned him several awards, including The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for his memoir Angela’s Ashes, which has since been made into a film starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle.
McCourt died in Manhattan on 19th July 2009.
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