Mississippi Author Barry Hannah dies at 67

Noted Mississippi author Barry Hannah passed away Monday afternoon at his home in Oxford, Miss. He was 67.

Hannah was a leading figure in contemporary American literature and was the author of Geronimo Rex, Airships, Ray, Bats Out of Hell, High Lonesome, and Yonder Stands Your Orphan among several others.

He was unquestionably one of our state's greatest writers," said Richard Howorth, a longtime friend of Hannah's and owner of Oxford's Square Books. "I'd be willing to wager that his books, his stories in particular, are read in creative writing classes at universities around the country more than any other writer's."

The upcoming Oxford Conference for the Book was scheduled to be dedicated to the works of Hannah.  UPM had the privilege of publishing Hannah's novellas Boomerang and Never Die. The books are available in one collection.

**UPDATE** The New York Times ran an obituary on Wednesday and mentioned Hannah's connection with UPM.

“He played an important role in introducing Southern literature to postmodernism at a time when Southern writing was trying to live up to and move beyond the great achievements of the modernist Southern Renaissance authors, especially William Faulkner,” Martyn Bone, the editor of “Perspectives on Barry Hannah” (University Press of Mississippi, 2007), wrote in an e-mail message on Tuesday.

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