Truman Capote, the father of New Journalism

The last year, when I started to study journalism, one of the first things that the teachers talk us about was the “New Journalism”; this is a style that combines fiction and reality, narrative and reportage, novels and journalism.

But, to really understand it and appreciate it, we need to read new journalism. So the teacher recommends us a very “entertainment” book (as she called it):

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

And here, I don’t want to talk about the book, or the case that inspires the book (a very horrible and cruel event) otherwise I want to talk about the author himself. Truman Streckfus Persons, mostly known as Truman Capote.

Truman Capote born in 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana, But lived almost his all childhood in Alabama, with her divorced mother. At a very young age he started to write, because it was the only method that he found to mitigates loneliness.

When he was 19 years old, he knew that writing was is passion and future, so he entered to The New Yorker and wrote many articles and stories like “Miriam” (1945) which caught the attention.

Besides all of that, Capote was truly known for the enormous work that he did for the nonfiction novel: In Cold Blood. This book was the peak of Capote’s literary career and tells the story of a family murderer in Kansas.

Capote spent seven years researching, interviewing and writing about this case that culminated with one of the most popular nonfiction book and the start of the New Journalism movement.

Truman Capote also wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) book that takes him to the films industry.