orig. Truman Streckfus Persons
born Sept. 30, 1924, New Orleans, La., U.S.
died Aug. 25, 1984, Los Angeles, Calif.
U.S. novelist, short-story writer, and playwright.
Capote spent much of his youth in small towns in Louisiana and Alabama. His early works, in the Southern Gothic tradition, include the novels Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and The Grass Harp (1951) and the story collection A Tree of Night (1949). His later journalistic style was exemplified in the highly successful "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood (1966), an account of a multiple murder. Other works include the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958; film, 1961), the musical House of Flowers (1954; with Harold Arlen ), and the collections The Dogs Bark (1973) and Music for Chameleons (1980).