Susan Sheehan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
August 24, 1937
Susan Sheehan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Susanna Maria Sachsel August 24, 1937 Vienna, Austria |
| Died | February 17, 2026 (aged 88) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Notable works | Is There No Place on Earth for Me? |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (1983) |
| Spouse |
Forrest Black II
(m. 1959, divorced)[1] |
| Children | 2 |
Susanna Maria Sheehan (née Sachsel; August 24, 1937 – February 17, 2026) was an American writer.
Born in Vienna, Austria, on August 24, 1937,[2] she won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for her book Is There No Place on Earth for Me?[3] The book details the experiences of a young New York City woman diagnosed with schizophrenia.[2] Portions of the book were published in The New Yorker, for which she has written frequently since 1961 as a staff writer.[2] Her work as a contributing writer has also appeared in The New York Times and Architectural Digest.[4]
In 1986, Sheehan published in The New Yorker "A Missing Plane," a three-part series about the U.S. Army's attempt to identify the remains of the victims of a 1944 airplane crash.[5]
Her husband was the journalist Neil Sheehan, whom she urged to copy what became known as the Pentagon Papers for the Times with her help,[6] and who also won a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction [2] for A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam in 1989.[3] Sheehan and her husband lived in Washington, D.C.[4] She died in Washington, DC, on February 17, 2026, at the age of 88.[1]
