PULITZER Prize winning author Frank McCourt has contracted meningitis and is unlikely to survive, his brother said last night.
The Irish-American writer, best known for the memoir Angela’s Ashes, was recently treated for melanoma, a form of skin cancer, and was said to have responded quite well to chemotherapy.
But the latest illness has resulted in Mr McCourt, 78, being admitted to a New York hospice where “his faculties are shutting down”, his brother said.
Malachy McCourt, also an author, added: “He is not expected to live”.
The Brooklyn-born writer grew up in Limerick after his family returned to Ireland in 1934.
He would later write about his childhood in the acclaimed book, Angela’s Ashes, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1997.
He followed up the award-winning memoir with ’Tis, which charted his return to America at the age of 19.
