J. D. Salinger J. D. Salinger Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American writer known for his widely read novel, "The Catcher in the Rye". Following his early success publishing short stories and "The Catcher in the Rye", Salinger led a very private life for more than a half-century. He published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. Salinger was raised in Manhattan and began writing short stories while in secondary school. Several were published in "Story" magazine in the early 1940s before he began serving in World War II. In
J. D. Salinger of Zen Buddhism, to the point that he "gave reading lists on the subject to his dates" and arranged a meeting with Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki. In 1947, the author submitted a short story titled simply "The Bananafish" to "The New Yorker". William Maxwell, the magazine's fiction editor, was impressed enough with "the singular quality of the story" that the magazine asked Salinger to continue revising it. He spent a year reworking it with "New Yorker" editors and the magazine accepted the story, now titled "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", and published it in the January 31, 1948 issue.