Ely Jacques Jr Kahn

Personal

Vocation

Family

American columnist and writer for The New Yorker and author of books on diverse subjects like Coca Cola and Frank Sinatra. His dad was the architect Ely Jacques Kahn and his mom was a writer. He joined The New Yorker when he was a senior at Harvard University and stayed with the prestigious magazine for five decades. His years in the US Army (1941-45) during WWII served as the basis for several of the pieces he produced for the magazine. In 1942 he published his first book aptly entitled "The Army Life." During the Korean War he was The New Yorker's war correspondent. In 1952 he published his book "The Peculiar War: Impressions of a Reporter in Korea." Ten years later he produced another book about war entitled "The Stragglers." He traveled widely and liked to say that he had written about 48 states. In all he produced 27 books with his last being "Supermarkets of the World" in 1991. His first marriage ended in divorce. He married again and had three sons and a step-son. He was in a terrible car accident with a truck on May 27, 1994 and died of his injuries the next day in Holyoke, MA May 28, 1994, at age 77. Link to Wikipedia biography