Great Writers With Mental Problems...

[-Carlos-]

I only know of three (3) writers who suffer(ed) with mental problems: Sylvia Plath, John Kennedy Toole, and Ernest Hemingway.

Please add names to this list of great writers (now living or long since dead) who lived with the blackness that is mental illness.

I am curious.

Thanks!

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[chiangmaifalcon]

Edgar Allen Poe, Robert E. Howard, James Ellroy

 

[Disenthral]

Authors with Mental Illnesses list

Philip K Dick -

Leaving aside medical terminology, there is no question that Dick felt himself, throughout his life, to suffer from bouts of psychological anguish that he frequently referred to as "nervous breakdowns." His experience of these was transmuted into fictional portraits, most notably of "ex-schizophrenic" Jack Bohlen in Martian Time-Slip (1964)."

"In February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of visions and auditions including an information-rich "pink light" beam that transmitted directly into his consciousness."

Kate Millett - Bipolar

Leo tolstoy - had drug and alcohol problems....not the same.And I DONT considered it a disease or illness.....

Richard Brautigan -

Brautigan was committed to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the same hospital used for filming Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. While in the hospital Brautigan received electric shock therapy treatments and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic

 

[-Carlos-]

Authors with Mental Illnesses list

Philip K Dick -

Kate Millett - Bipolar

Leo tolstoy - had drug and alcohol problems....not the same.And I DONT considered it a disease or illness.....

Richard Brautigan -

Wow! An actual list. I also knew that Woolfe was a victim, but the rest...I never knew. Question: Why do so many great writers have/had such mental issues? Is there a link between such talented writers and their mental illness (anguish)? I wonder....

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[sparkchaser]

There are far more great writers without "mental issues" than with so I don't think your question really makes much sense.

 

[-Carlos-]

But why is that sparks?

 

[sparkchaser]

If you have 600 of something and 30 out of that 600 have a common property that the rest do not have, is that significant?

 

[-Carlos-]

not really

 

[jimthompson]

There is thin line between genius and insanity. It is exactly 3.275 millimeters.