WRITER

William Kennedy

1928 - Today

Photo of William Kennedy

Icon of person William Kennedy

William Joseph Kennedy (born January 16, 1928) is an American writer and journalist who won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for his 1983 novel Ironweed. Kennedy's other works include The Ink Truck (1969), Legs (1975), Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (1978), Roscoe (2002) and Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes (2011). Many of his novels have featured the interactions of members of the fictional Irish-American Phelan family in Albany, New York. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of William Kennedy has received more than 26,769 page views. His biography is available in 19 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 16 in 2019). William Kennedy is the 6,495th most popular writer (down from 5,941st in 2019), the 12,340th most popular biography from United States (down from 11,888th in 2019) and the 898th most popular American Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 27k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 40.59

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 19

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 2.08

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.51

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Ironweed
Fiction, Family in fiction, Family
1983
English taxation, 1640-1799
Taxation, History, Great Britain
1913
Writing in the Disciplines
Problems, exercises, Academic writing, College readers
1987
Reminiscences of Walt Whitman
American Poets, Biography
1896
John Greenleaf Whittier
Abolitionists, American Poets, Biography
1882
Literature--An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing--Eleventh Edition
freedom, selfhood, self-fulfilment
2006
Ironweed
Fiction, Family in fiction, Family
1983
English taxation, 1640-1799
Taxation, History, Great Britain
1913
Ironweed
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, award:national_book_critics_circle_award=fiction, award:national_book_critics_circle_award=1983
1983
Writing in the Disciplines
Problems, exercises, Academic writing, College readers
1987
Great Short Stories of the World
Short stories, fiction, Mothers and daughters
The leader of the people / John Steinbeck Mr. Know-all / W. Somerset Maugham Vanka / Anton Chekhov The happy prince / Oscar Wilde The old demon / Pearl S. Buck The sailor-boy's tale / Isak Dinesen Young Archimedes / Aldous Huxley Butch minds the baby / Damon Runyon Suspicion / Dorothy L. Sayers Hautot and his son / Guy de Maupassat The open boat / Stephen Crane My Oedipus complex / Frank O'Connor The snows of Kilimanjaro / Ernest Hemingway A letter to God / Gregorio López y Fuentes The little Bouilloux girl / Colette The ruby / Corrado Alvaro Six feet of the country / Nadine Gordimer [The boarding house](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073259W/The_Boarding_House) / James Joyce The brute / Joseph Conrad A double game / Alberto Moravia Maternity / Lilika Nakos Lead her like a pigeon / Jessamyn West God sees the truth, but waits / Leo Tolstoy The walker-through-walls / Marcel Ayme [The lottery](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3171085W/Lottery) / Shirley Jackson The McWilliamses and the burglar alarm / Mark Twain The Augsburg chalk circle / Bertolt Brecht The overcoat / Sally Benson Blind MacNair / Thomas H. Raddall The procurator of Judaea / Anatole France The open window / Saki (H.H. Munro) María Concepción / Katherine A. Porter My Lord, the baby / Rabindranath Tagore The end of the party / Graham Greene Modern children / Sholom Aleichem Babylon revisited / F. Scott Fitzgerald Carrion spring / Wallace Stegner Just lather, that's all / Hernando Téllez The secret life of Walter Mitty / James Thurber The rocking-horse winner / D.H. Lawrence The Sunday menace / Robert Benchley The Mezzotint /Montague R. James The alligators / John Updike Pelageya / Mikhail Zoshchenko Haircut / Ring Lardner The burning city / Hjalmar Söderberg Fireworks for Elspeth / Rumer Godden The old chief Mshlanga / Doris Lessing Who cares? / Santha Rama Rau Over the river and though the wood / John O'Hara Dental or mental, I say it's spinach / S.J. Perelman The drover's wife / Henry Lawson The huntsmen / Paul Horgan The guest / Albert Camus Patience / Nigel Balchin Among the paths to Eden / Truman Capote Admiral's night / Machado de Assis The bet / Anton Chekhov The man who could work miracles / H.G. Wells A country love story / Jean Stafford A worn path / Eudora Welty The outstation / W. Somerset Maugham A priest in the family / Leo Kennedy The cop and the anthem / O. Henry Marriage á la mode / Katherine Mansfield The nightingale / Maxim Gorky The launch / Max Aub The wreath / Luigi Pirandello The eighty-yard run / Irwin Shaw You were perfectly fine / Dorothy Parker Luzina takes a holiday / Gabrielle Roy
1972

Among WRITERS

Among writers, William Kennedy ranks 6,495 out of 7,302. Before him are Norman Podhoretz, Véronique Tadjo, Tracy Hickman, João W. Nery, Sue Monk Kidd, and Felicia Hemans. After him are Lionel Trilling, Lidija Dimkovska, Vachel Lindsay, Ogden Nash, John Arden, and Jasper Fforde.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1928, William Kennedy ranks 568. Before him are Gino Pariani, Andrew Sarris, Bernard Baudoux, Russell Mockridge, Balakh Sher Mazari, and Jimmy Dean. After him are Olle Larsson, Maureen Gardner, Bruce Forsyth, Vince Edwards, Conrad Janis, and Keely Smith.

Others Born in 1928

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In United States

Among people born in United States, William Kennedy ranks 12,340 out of 20,380. Before him are Chauncey Billups (1976), Sue Monk Kidd (1948), Cheyenne Jackson (1975), Harry Hines Woodring (1887), Chris Webber (1973), and Carole Cook (1924). After him are Lionel Trilling (1905), Ruth Clifford (1900), Geoffrey Blake (1962), Milburn Stone (1904), Allen Covert (1964), and Vachel Lindsay (1879).

Others born in United States

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Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, William Kennedy ranks 898. Before him are Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872), Beverly Cleary (1916), Marc Connelly (1890), Norman Podhoretz (1930), Tracy Hickman (1955), and Sue Monk Kidd (1948). After him are Lionel Trilling (1905), Vachel Lindsay (1879), Ogden Nash (1902), Christopher Moore (1957), Countee Cullen (1903), and Richelle Mead (1976).

American born Writers

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