Nathanael West

17 October 1903 – 22 December 1940

Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein was born in 1903 in New York City. He attended Brown University and from 1924 to 1931 he lived in Paris, where he wrote *The Dream Life of Balso Snell*. On his return to New York, he managed a residential hotel and was associate editor, with [William Carlos Williams](https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL219856A/William_Carlos_Williams), of the magazine *Contact*. *Miss Lonelyhearts* appeared in 1933, *A Cool Million* in 1934 and *The Day of the Locust* in 1939. He worked on film scripts in Hollywood for the last five years of his life. He and his wife were tragically killed in a car accident in 1940. *--Penguin Books* Photo *--Wikicommons*