American writer. His original name was Truman Streckfus Persons. Truman Capote was born in New Orleans as the son of a salesman and a 16-year-old beauty queen. His father worked as a clerk for a steamboat company. His family was of Spanish descent. At the age of 9 he followed his mother to New York, and at the age of 11 he acquired the name Capote from his stepfather, Joe Capote, a Cuban businessman.

Truman Capote won several prizes for writing while at school in New York but showed little aptitude for other subjects.

He was open about his homosexuality which was rare for the 1940s. His youthful good looks made him the centre of attention.

Truman Capote is the so-called inventor of the non-fiction novel. Author of short stories, novels, novellas, travel writing, profiles, reportages, memoirs, plays and films he is most famous for the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s about a young Manhattan prostitute.

His first book, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), centres on the homosexual awakenings of a young boy in a small town in the deep South. He later embarked on a six-year journalistic project about the murder of a Kansas family that ended up in the non-fiction book In Cold Blood (1966). In this book he investigated the seemingly senseless murder of a Kansas family by gaining the confidence of the murderers, two sociopaths. The book made him famous and he made regular appearances on television.

In 1948 he met Jack Dunphy who was married but they became lovers for years and lifelong friends. In 1949 they travelled to Tangier and met Paul Bowles and his wife Jane Bowles.

In the 1950s Capote wrote The house of flowers, a musical set in West Indies bordello. Capote's lyrical style, melancholy, and whimsical humor marked his novel The grass harp (1951), in which a young boy and his elderly cousin defy the conventions of a materialistic society, but also discover that some compromise in necessary in people are to live together in a community. The book was adapted into screen in 1996, starring Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, and Walter Matthau. Capote's first important film work was collaboration with John Huston on Beat the Devil (1954).

He was also a successful journalist and wrote profiles and travel sketches, many of which first appeared in The New Yorker. His journalism was re-produced in Local Color, (1950), Selected Writings, (1963), The Dogs Bark, (1973), and Music for Chameleons, (1981). His The Muses Are Heard, (1956), was an account of a largely black company touring the Soviet Union with Porgy and Bess.

Among Capote's other works is the classic A christmas memory (1966), an autobiographical account of a seven-year-old boy, his cousin, and an eccentric old lady. The story has been a continual favorite as a television play.

In the 1970s he subjected himself to bouts of drug taking and alcoholism. He visited all the gay bars and clubs in New York including Studio 54, The Anvil, The Mineshaft, The Limelight, and The Flamingo.

Capote died in Los Angeles, California, on August 26, 1984, of liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication.

Selected works:

• Other Voices, Other Rooms, 1948, a novel.
• A Tree of Night and Other Stories, 1949, a collection of stories.
• Local Color, 1950, a collection of journalistic pieces.
• The Grass Harp, 1951, a novel.
• Beat The Devil, 1953, a film screenplay with John Huston.
• The house of flowers, 1954 (play, with Harold Arlen)
• The Muses Are Heard, 1956, a collection of journalistic pieces.
• Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1958, a novel.
• Observations, 1959 (with R. Avedon)
• Turn of the Screw, 1960, a film screenplay.
• The Innocents, 1961, a film screenplay.
• Selected Writings, 1963, a collection of journalistic pieces.
• A Christmas Memory, 1966, a collection of short stories.
• In Cold Blood, 1966, a 'non-fiction novel' about murders in Kansas
• Among the paths to eden, 1967 (television play)
• Laura, 1968 (television play)
• The Thanksgiving Visitor, 1968, a novel.
• Trilogy, 1969 (screenplay, with Eleanor Perry)
• Experiment in multimedia, 1969 (with E. and F. Perry)
• Behind prison walls, 1972 (television play)
• The glass house, 1972 (television play, with Tracy Keenan Wynn and Wyatt Cooper)
• Crimewatch, 1973 (television play)
• The Dogs Bark, 1973, a collection of journalistic pieces.
• Answered Prayers, 1975, an unfinished novel which appeared in Esquire magazine.
• Then it all came down, 1976
• Music for Chameleons, 1981, a collection of journalistic pieces.
• One Christmas, 1982

Bibliography:

• Clarke, G., (1988), Capote: a biography
• Garson, H., (1980), Truman Capote
• Grobel, L., (2000), Conversations with Capote
• Moates, M. M., (1996), Truman Capote's Southern Years
• Nance, W. L., (1970), The Worlds of Truman Capote, New York: Stein and Day.
• Plimpton, G., (1997), Truman Capote
• Reed, K. T., (1981), Truman Capote
• Rudisill, M. and Simmons, J.C., (2001), The Southern Haunting of Truman Capote
• Waldmeir, J., (1999), The Critical Response to Truman Capote