theparisreview:

We are sad to learn that Evan Connell has died. An early contributor to The Paris Review, Connell was and is a hero among writers. His novels Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge have been cited as a crucial influence by authors as different as Lydia Davis, Jonathan Franzen, and Zadie Smith. In his long history books—Son of the Morning Star (about General Custer) and Deus Lo Volt! (about the Crusades)—his poems, and his essays, he sang the glories of lost civilizations and pointed to the ruins at our feet. Connell loved any tale of doomed experiments, he delighted in waste and folly, but his own experiments bore fruit, and no two of the same kind. We regret that Connell was unable to finish an Art of Fiction interview for the magazine; stay tuned in the next few days for selections from his work as it appeared in The Paris Review.