Reclusive US novelist J.D. Salinger, who became a giant of American literature with his legendary work "The Catcher in the Rye," has died at 91.
Salinger died Wednesday in New Hampshire, his agency in New York said. The cause of death was not announced.
Born in 1919, Salinger was part of a generation of major 20th century US novelists. However, he had not published an original work since 1965 and was a total recluse, refusing interviews for the last three decades.
His 1951 tale of teenage rebellion, "The Catcher in the Rye," made him world famous, but he shrank from the glare of success, retreating to his house in the small town of Cornish, New Hampshire.
He fiercely guarded his privacy, turning to the courts to stop publication of his letters and refusing offers to sell movie rights to "Catcher."
Just in July last year, a US judge suspended the publication of an unauthorized sequel to "Catcher" by Swedish author Fredrik Colting.
Salinger's death was likely to reignite speculation over whether he may have produced valuable works.
He hinted at this in a tantalizing interview with the Boston Sunday Globe in 1980, where he said: "I love to write, and I assure you I write regularly. But I write for myself and I want to be left absolutely alone to do it."
The market for any posthumous Salinger writings would likely be highly lucrative.
Letters he wrote to his young lover Joyce Maynard, with whom he started a year-long relationship in 1972, sold for more than 150,000 dollars at auction in 1999.
Jerome David Salinger was born on New Year's Day 1919 in Manhattan, New York, the son of an Irish mother and Jewish father with Polish roots.
As a teenager he began writing stories. In 1940, his debut story "The Young Ones" about several aimless youths was published in "Story" magazine.
Then came America's entry into World War II, and the young Salinger was drafted in 1942. He took part in the D-Day stormings of the Normandy beaches, and his wartime experiences are said to have marked him for life.
He married a German woman after the war, but the marriage fell apart after just a few months, and Salinger renewed his writings with a passion.
In 1948 he published the short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in the New Yorker, bringing him acclaim and introducing the Glass family and its seven rambunctious children Seymour Buddy, Boo Boo, Walt, Waker, Zooey, and Franny, who were to populate several of his short stories.
But it was "The Catcher in the Rye," published three years later, that was to seal his reputation. The book was an instant success, and even today remains recommended reading at many high schools, selling around 250,000 copies a year.
Sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield's adventures and musings as he makes his way home after being kicked out of school touched a raw nerve and have fascinated generations of disaffected youngsters.
