Literary obituaries: January 14, 2026

Here are the literary deaths that either occurred recently or popped into the news recently, starting with the most distant and all coming from The New York Times.

• Jerome Lowenstein, a professor of medicine who also worked in the literary field, died December 8 at age ninety-two; he wrote multiple books of his own, served as the nonfiction editor for a literary journal, and worked as the publisher of a press that released a debut novel that ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize.  

• Daniel Walker Howe, a historian and professor who won a Pulitzer Prize for the book What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, died December 25 at age eighty-eight.

• Swiss author Erich von Däniken, best known for declaring that extraterrestrial beings had given ancient humans technology and intelligence in the book Chariots of the Gods, died January 10 at age ninety.