“Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered, Oh God.”

American author

Cormac McCarthy was an American author known for fiction and drama that moved across the Western, post-apocalyptic, and Southern Gothic traditions. He is credited with twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories. His work is marked by stark violence, spare punctuation, and minimal use of quotation attributions. Across those books and scripts, he developed a voice that is lean, severe, and closely associated with the American literary canon.