Posted on October 23, 2023 at 2:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
The New York Times has two obituaries of experts who also contributed to literature.
The first is for Eva Kollisch, who died October 10 at age ninety-eight.
Kollisch escaped Nazi-occupied Austria as a teenager and went on to become a professor, lesbian-rights activist, and memoirist (Girl in Movement and The Ground Under My Feet) in the United States.
The other obituary subject didn't write a book, but his work heavily influenced a major one of this century.
Roland A. Pattillo was a gynecologic oncologist who, in the early 1990s, began efforts to recognize Henrietta Lacks's (inadvertent and nonconsensual) contribution to cancer research.
A paper that he wrote in that process ended up inspiring Rebecca Skloot, and he provided significant medical guidance as she wrote her eventual bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Pattillo died May 3 at age eighty-nine, but the death wasn't widely reported until recently.
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Categories: Today in Books