Breslin, Jimmy

Breslin, Jimmy

 orig. James Earl Breslin

(born Oct. 17, 1929, Jamaica, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. columnist and novelist. During his long newspaper career Breslin became known as a tough-talking voice of his native Queens, a working-class New York City borough. He started as a copyboy, then established himself as a sportswriter; later, as a syndicated columnist and contributor to numerous publications, he wrote with passion and personal involvement on politics and social issues, often focusing on injustice and corruption. He won a 1986 Pulitzer Prize for newspaper columns championing ordinary citizens. Among his books are the novel The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1969).

---

Breslin, (James) Jimmy (1930–  ) journalist; born in the New York City borough of Queens. Starting as a sportswriter for the New York Herald Tribune, he evolved into a self-described "street reporter"; his columns, for a sequence of New York papers, offered vignettes, character sketches, and commentary, in a scrappy, colloquial style. Also a novelist, he won a 1986 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.