Don DeLillo was born on Nov. 20, 1936, in the New York City borough of the Bronx, to Italian immigrants. DeLillo had little contact with literature until he was 18, when he describes being carried away by the power and beauty of language. He attended Fordham University in New York, but found the city a far more exciting playground, citing its access to experimental art, jazz, and movies (he describes French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard as the primary influence over his early work). He had a brief stint in the advertising world, and though he claims it was an uninteresting time of his life, his obsession with media and American culture may find its roots there, as well as in his immigrant...
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