By Debra Lau Whelan

Author, screenwriter, and playwright Paul Zindel, who was the recipient of the 2002 Margaret A. Edward's Award for lifetime contributions to young people's literature, died March 27 at the Jacob Perlow Hospice at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 66 (see "The Pigman and He," June 2002, pp. 52-54).

Zindel, whose work drew on memories of his dark, troubled childhood in Staten Island, won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for fiction for his first novel The Pigman (Harper, 1968), which tells the story of two estranged teens, John Conlan and Loraine Jensen, and their relationship with Angelo Pignati (a. k. a. the Pigman). The book was also selected as one of School Library Journal's most influential books of the 20th century (see "One Hundred Books That Shaped the Century", January 2000, pp.50-58).

Zindel's autobiographical play, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, ran for 819 performances on Broadway and earned him the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. "I believe I must convince my readers that I am on their side," Zindel said of his writings.

Zindel, who had been a high school chemistry teacher for six years, felt compelled to write novels and plays that portray sensitive, yet conflicted, young adults. He was born on May 15, 1936 in the Tottenville section of Staten Island. His father, a police officer, abandoned the family, while his domineering mother worked as a shipyard laborer, a hat-check attendant, and dog-breeder. Zindel married novelist Bonnie Hildebrand in 1973, but they divorced in 1998. He is survived by a daughter, Lizbeth, and a son, David.