Salinger, J D

Salinger, J(erome) D(avid)

(born Jan. 1, 1919, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. writer. He began to publish short stories in periodicals in 1940. After World War II his stories, some based on his army experiences, appeared increasingly in The New Yorker. His entire literary output comprises 13 stories and novellas— collected in Nine Stories (1953), Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)—and The Catcher in the Rye (1951), a novel of adolescent anguish that won great critical and popular admiration, especially among college students. He retreated into a mysterious seclusion in New Hampshire and ceased to publish.