Sol Yurick

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sol Yurick was born in 1925 to a working class family of politically active Jewish immigrants. At the age of 14, Yurick became disillusioned with politics after the Hitler-Stalin pact. He enlisted during World War II, where he trained as a surgical technician. He studied at New York University after the war, majoring in literature. After graduation, he took a job with the welfare department as a social investigator, a job he held until the early 1960s, when he took up writing full time. He was involved in Students for a Democratic Society and the anti-war movement at this time.

His first novel, The Warriors, appeared in 1965. It combined a classical Greek story, Anabasis (Xenophon), with a fictional account of gang wars in New York City. It inspired the 1979 film, The Warriors. His other works include: Fertig (1966), The Bag (1968), Someone Just Like You (1972), "An Island Death, [1976]Richard A (1981), Behold Metatron, the Recording Angel (1985), Confession (1999). Yurick is still an active writer. The remake of the Warriors (2006) is slated for release soon. While fans of the Warriors (1979) - a true cult classic - are not happy with the remake of the film (in that it was remade in the context of Los Angeles street gangs), it has prompted the original film back into high circulation, in that movie theatres around the world are showing the film again and stores that rent DVDs can't keep up with the demand.