Called “the most perfect writer of a generation” by his contemporary Norman Mailer, Truman Capote (1924–1984) was born Truman Streckfus Persons on this day in New Orleans, Louisiana.

He achieved early literary fame at the age of twenty-one with his debut, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), a work that announced a rare genius. Within it gleams a passage that feels like a lantern of memory and love:

“The true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.”

Capote later wrote the sparkling New York novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and, at forty-two, completed his masterwork In Cold Blood (1966)—a “nonfiction novel” about the murder of a Kansas farm family that took six years to write. Reading like a thriller, it helped define what we now call creative nonfiction.

“Writing has laws of perspective of light and shade just as painting does, or music,” he said. “If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.”

Slight in stature and instantly recognizable—boyish, with a high lisping voice—Capote could shape dark drama and light comedy with equal grace. Biographer George Plimpton remembered him as an unbelievably charming man: a great storyteller and an engaging inventor of truth. Actor Humphrey Bogart agreed: “At first you can’t believe him, he’s so odd, and then you want to carry him around with you always.”

Named to the Top 100 Writers of the 20th Century, Truman Capote blended truth and invention into stories that shimmer with style and insight. From the lilac glow of memory to the cold geometry of crime, he turned the page into a stage for human complexity.