J. P. Donleavy

J. P. Donleavy

James Patrick Donleavy (born 23 April 1926, New York City) is an Irish American author.

Born to Irish emigrant parents, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war ended he moved to Ireland. In 1946 he began studying at Trinity College, Dublin, but left before taking a degree. He was first published in the Dublin literary periodical, Envoy. He gained critical acclaim with his first novel, The Ginger Man, which is one of the Modern Library 100 best novels. Correctly or incorrectly, his initial works are sometimes grouped with the Kitchen Sink artists as well as the "Angry Young Men". Although not in the Beat tradition (while overlapping with it), The Ginger Man has been compared to Jack Kerouac's On the Road in that, just as Kerouac based his central character of Dean Moriarty on Neal Cassady, Donleavy based his central character Sebastian Dangerfield on a fellow American emigrant to Dublin, Gainor Crist.