Truman Capote was born in New Orleans in 1925. By the age of fourteen he had already started writing short stories, some of which were published. After leaving school at fifteen he worked for the New Yorker, his first - and last - regular job. Following this Capote spent two years on a Louisiana farm where he wrote Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). He lived, at one time or another, in Greece, Italy, Africa and the West Indies, and travelled in Russia and the Orient. Capote is the author of many highly acclaimed books, including A Tree of Night and Other Stories (1949), The Grass Harp (1951), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958), In Cold Blood (1965), which immediately became the centre of a storm of controversy on its publication, Music for Chameleons (1980) and Answered Prayers (1986). Truman Capote died in 1984.