Reclusive Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger dies

LEGENDARY author JD Salinger whose novel, The Catcher in the Rye, shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died at the age of 91.

Salinger died of natural causes at his home, the author’s son said in a statement from the authors literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, New Hampshire.

The Catcher in the Rye, with its immortal teenage protagonist, the rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made Catcher a featured selection, advised that for “anyone who has ever brought up a son” the novel will be “a source of wonder and delight – and concern”.