ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 21, 1997 TAG: 9701210102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
James Dickey, a poet, author and writer best remembered for his 1970 novel ``Deliverance'' about civilized man's struggle and survival in the wilderness, has died. He was 73.
Dickey, a Southerner who had set the internationally best-selling novel in Georgia, died Sunday in Columbia, S.C., of complications from lung disease.
A prolific writer of essays, criticism and poetry, Dickey wrote few novels and insisted he did so only to pay the rent - that poetry was his true interest.
The novel ``Deliverance'' was made into a motion picture in 1972 starring Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight. Dickey personally adapted his book into the screenplay.
The book won the French Prix Medicis in 1971, and the film was nominated for an Academy Award as best picture.
He published only two other novels, ``Alnilam'' in 1987 about a men's group seeking world dominance, and ``To the White Sea'' in 1993 about a tail-gunner shot down over Japan near the end of World War II. Neither captured a fraction of the attention given ``Deliverance.''
Dickey registered great literary recognition for his more than 20 collections of poetry. One, ``Buckdancer's Choice,'' won the 1966 National Book Award. And he earned an envious historic invitation to read his poetry at Jimmy Carter's inauguration in 1976.
Born in Buckhead, Ga., James Lafayette Dickey also taught English at Rice University and the University of Florida.
LENGTH: Short : 38 linesby CNB