James A. Michener

James A. Michener
Author James A. Michener in 1991
Born	(1907-02-03)February 3, 1907 Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	October 16, 1997(1997-10-16) (aged 90) Austin, Texas, U.S.
Occupation	Author, philanthropist, teacher, academic, naval officer and political advisor
Genre	Historical fiction
Notable works	Tales of the South Pacific (1946)
Notable awards	1948: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1977: Presidential Medal of Freedom 2008: Honorary portrait image on a United States postage stamp

James Albert Michener (/ˈmɪtʃnər/;^[1] February 3, 1907 – October 16, 1997) was an American author of more than 40 books, the majority of which were fictional, lengthy family sagas covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating solid history. Michener was known for the popularity of his works; he had numerous bestsellers and works selected for Book of the Month Club. He was also known for his meticulous research behind the books.^[2]

Michener's novels include Tales of the South Pacific for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948, Hawaii, The Drifters, Centennial, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Chesapeake, Caribbean, Caravans, Alaska, Texas and Poland. His non-fiction works include Iberia, about his travels in Spain and Portugal; his memoir titled The World Is My Home, and Sports in America. Return to Paradise combines fictional short stories with Michener's factual descriptions of the Pacific areas where they take place.^[2]

His first book was adapted as the popular Broadway musical South Pacific by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and later as a film by the same name, adding to his financial success.

Biography

Michener wrote that he did not know who his biological parents were or exactly when or where he was born.^[2] He said he was raised a Quaker by an adoptive mother, Mabel Michener, in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.^[3]

Michener graduated from Doylestown High School in 1925. He attended Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where he played basketball and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. After graduating summa cum laude in 1929 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History, he traveled and studied in Scotland at the University of St Andrews for two years.^[4]

Michener took a job as a high school English teacher at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. From 1933 to 1936, he taught English at George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania. He attended University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in Education.^[3] After graduation, he taught at the university for several years; the library at the University of Northern Colorado was later named after him.

In 1935, Michener married Patti Koon. He went to Harvard University and taught from 1939 to 1940, but left to join Macmillan Publishers as their social studies education editor.^[3]

Michener was called to active duty during World War II in the United States Navy. He traveled throughout the South Pacific Ocean on various assignments which he gained because his base commanders mistakenly thought his father was Admiral Marc Mitscher.^[5] His experiences during these travels inspired his stories published in his breakout work Tales of the South Pacific.^[3]

In 1960, Michener was chairman of the Bucks County committee to elect John F. Kennedy. In 1962, he unsuccessfully ran as a Democratic candidate for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, a decision he later considered a misstep. "My mistake was to run in 1962 as a Democratic candidate for Congress. [My wife] kept saying, 'Don't do it, don't do it.' I lost and went back to writing books."^[3]

In 1968, Michener served as the campaign manager for twice-elected US senator Joseph S. Clark's third-term run.^[6] Michener was later Secretary for the 1967–68 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention.^[3]

Writing career

Michener's typewriter at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania

Michener began his writing career during World War II, when as a lieutenant in the Navy he was assigned to the South Pacific as a naval historian. He later turned his notes and impressions into Tales of the South Pacific (1947), his first book, published when he was 40. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1948, and Rodgers and Hammerstein adapted it as the hit Broadway musical South Pacific, which premiered on Broadway in 1949.^[7] The musical was also adapted as eponymous feature films in 1958 and 2001.

In the late 1950s, Michener began working as a roving editor for Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. He gave up that work in 1970.

Michener tried television writing but was unsuccessful. American television producer Bob Mann wanted Michener to co-create a weekly anthology series from Tales of the South Pacific, and serve as narrator. Rodgers and Hammerstein, however, had bought all dramatic rights to the novel and did not relinquish their ownership.^[8] Michener did lend his name to a different television series, Adventures in Paradise, in 1959.^[9]

Michener was a popular writer during his lifetime; his novels sold an estimated 75 million copies worldwide.^[10] His novel Hawaii (1959) was based on extensive research. He used this approach for nearly all of his subsequent novels, which were based on detailed historical, cultural, and even geological research. Centennial (1974), which documented several generations of families in the West, was adapted as a popular 12-part television miniseries of the same name and aired on NBC from October 1978 through February 1979.

In 1996, State House Press published James A. Michener: A Bibliography, compiled by David A. Groseclose. Its more than 2,500 entries from 1923 to 1995 include magazine articles, forewords, and other works.

Michener's prodigious output made for lengthy novels, several of which run more than 1,000 pages. The author states in My Lost Mexico (1992) that at times he would spend 12 to 15 hours per day at his typewriter for weeks on end, and that he used so much paper, his filing system had trouble keeping up.

Marriages

Michener was married three times. In 1935, he married Patti Koon. In 1948, they divorced, and the same year Michener married his second wife, Vange Nord.^[2]

Michener met his third wife, Mari Yoriko Sabusawa, at a luncheon in Chicago. An American, she and her Japanese parents had suffered internment in camps the US set up during World War II to hold ethnic Japanese from West Coast communities. Michener divorced Nord in 1955 and married Sabusawa the same year. She died in 1994.^[2]

Michener's novel Sayonara (1954) is quasi-autobiographical.^[3] Set during the early 1950s, it tells the story of Major Gruver, a soldier stationed in Japan, who falls in love with Hana-Ogi, a Japanese woman. The novel follows their cross-cultural Japanese romance and illuminates the racism of the post-WWII time period.

Philanthropist

Michener became a major philanthropist, donating more than US$100 million to educational and writing institutions, including his alma mater, Swarthmore College, the Iowa Writers Workshop, and more than US$37 million to University of Texas at Austin. By 1992, his gifts made him UTA's largest single donor to that time. Over the years, Mari Michener played a major role in helping direct his donations.^[2]

In 1989, Michener donated the royalty earnings from the Canadian edition of his novel, Journey (1989), published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart, to create the Journey Prize, an annual Canadian literary prize worth $10,000 (Cdn) that is awarded for the year's best short story published by an emerging Canadian writer.^[11]

Final years and death

In Micheners' final years, he and his wife lived in Austin, Texas, and they endowed the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. The Center provides Michener Fellowship scholarships to students accepted to the university's MFA in Writing program.^[12][13]

Suffering from terminal kidney disease, in October 1997, Michener ended the daily dialysis treatment that had kept him alive for four years. He said he had accomplished what he wanted and did not want further physical complications. On October 16, 1997, he died of kidney failure, at age 90.^[2][7] Michener was cremated, and his ashes were placed next to those of his wife at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery in Austin, Texas.^[14]

Bequeathments

Michener left most of his estate and book copyrights to Swarthmore College, where he earned his bachelor's degree.^[15] He had donated his papers to the University of Northern Colorado, where he earned his master's degree.^[2]

Honors

• In 1993, the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation awarded Michener its Lone Sailor Award for his naval service and his literary achievements.^[16]

• In 1994, Michener endorsed the naming as "Michener's" for the restaurant at Iririki Island Resort, Port Vila, Vanuatu. He wrote:

"Many of the fondest memories of my travels stem back to my years of military service in the New Hebrides -- now Vanuatu -- during the Pacific War years of the early 1940s...While those beautiful islands have changed much with progress in the ensuing years, I know from subsequent visits that the friendliness of the peoples, their infectious smiles and their open-heartedness will remain forever one of life's treasures."^[17]

Posthumous

• Michener is honored by a memorial headstone at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.^[18]=

• On May 12, 2008, the United States Postal Service honored him with a 59¢ Distinguished Americans series postage stamp.^[19]

• The Library at The University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado, his alma mater, is named the James Michener Library in his honour. On the top floor, there is a small display of his effects, including one of his typewriters.^[20]

• In 1998, the Raffles Hotel in Singapore named one of their suites after the author, in memory of his patronage and affection for the hotel. Michener first stayed at the Singapore hotel in 1949 after World War II. In a 1987 interview, he said it was a luxury for him, a young man, to stay at the Raffles Hotel then, and that he had the time of his life. He returned on a later trip. The suite was officially christened by Steven J. Green, Ambassador of United States to Singapore.^[7]

James A. Michener Art Museum

Opened in 1988 in Michener's hometown of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, the James A. Michener Art Museum houses collections of local and well-known artists. Michener pledged $5.5 million to the museum in 1996.^[2] Constructed from the remains of an old prison, the museum is a non-profit organization with both permanent and rotating collections. Two prominent permanent fixtures are the James A. Michener display room and the Nakashima Reading Room, constructed in honor of his third wife's Japanese heritage. The museum is known for its permanent collection of Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings.

James A. Michener Society

The James A. Michener Society was formed in the fall of 1998 and is composed of people who share a common interest in James Michener's life and work.^[21]

The society's purpose is to provide the following:^[21]

• preserve the intellectual legacy of James A. Michener as a writer, teacher, historian, public servant, patriot, and philanthropist;
• ensure that future generations have full access to all his writings;
• promote the exchange of ideas and information about his writings;
• encourage fellowship among readers of his writings;
• inform devotees and members of the Society about recent publications and critiques of his writings.

The society sponsors a variety of activities and publishes an electronic newsletter. Annual meetings of members are held at locations closely associated with James Michener's life.^[21]

Works

In addition to writing novels, short stories, and non-fiction, Michener was very involved with movies, TV series, and radio. The following is only a major part of what is listed in the Library of Congress files.

Books — fiction

Books — non-fiction

Adaptations

See also

• List of bestselling novels in the United States
• Edward Rutherfurd

References

Further reading

• Hayes John Phillip, James A. Michener: A Biography, Bobbs Merrill, 1985.
• James A. Michener: The Beginning Teacher, 1995. His formative school years with Michener's personal reminiscences. Published by The Book Stops Here.
• James A. Michener: A Bibliography, 1996.
• Herman Silverman, Michener and Me: A Memoir; hardcover 1999/paperback 2003. Memoir by a long-time friend of Michener.
• Michener: A Writer's Journey, 2005.
• Michener's The Name, 2006, by photographer Robert Vavra. Photo essay and commentary on Michener's writing of Iberia in Spain.
• Lawrence Grobel, Conversations with Michener; hardcover as Talking with Michener 1999; ebook edition 2013.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: James A. Michener

• Works by or about James A. Michener in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• James A. Michener at the Internet Movie Database
• Published books with covers
• James A. Michener Library at the University of Northern Colorado
• James A. Michener Society
• James A. Michener Special Collection: David A. Groseclose
• James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA
• Michener Center for Writers
• Michener: His Influence and Ethics by Edward Rutherfurd
• Working with James A. Michener — The Making of The Covenant
• Biographical Entry at the Texas State Cemetery
• Biography at IMDB
• James A. Michener at Find a Grave