Born in New York City on the first day of 1919, J.D. Salinger is the son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother. After brief periods of enrollment at both NYU and Columbia University, Salinger devoted himself entirely to writing, and by 1940 he had published several short stories in periodicals. Although his career as a writer was interrupted by World War II, Salinger returned from service in 1946 and resumed his career, writing primarily for The New Yorker. Some of his most notable stories include his first story for The New Yorker, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (1948), which tells of the suicide of a despairing war veteran, and "For Esmé—With Love and Squalor" (1950), which...
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