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Poet, novelist, journalist, film critic, screenwriter, avid letter writer, and social activist: all these hats were worn by James Agee in his short but illustrious literary career. Dead at age forty-five from heart problems exacerbated by heavy drinking and hard living, Agee left memorable books in the impassioned social history Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with photographs by Walker Evans, and the posthumous novel, Death in the Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Agee is remembered for more than his longer prose works, however: in his film reviews he almost single-handedly help to establish film criticism as a serious discipline in America; in his journalism for Fortune and Time magazines he continually pushed at the limits of nonfiction, helping to pave the way for the "New Journalism" of the 1960s; and writing for the screen he was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie classic The African Queen. "Eclectic" is an adjective much used to describe Agee's work; other critics find such breadth of creation a sign of Agee's essentially restless nature and inability to focus.
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