Paul Noden West (23 February 1930 – 18 October 2015) was a British-born American novelist, poet, and essayist. He was born in Eckington, Derbyshire in England to Alfred and Mildred (Noden) West. Before his death, he resided in Ithaca, New York, with his wife Diane Ackerman, a writer, poet, and naturalist. West is the author of more than 50 books. Early life West grew up in Eckington, a rural mining town in Derbyshire, England. His father, partly blinded in World War I, was often unemployed. His mother, a talented pianist, gave private lessons to help support the family. She encouraged West in his love of words and his literary ambitions. In a 1989 interview by author and literary critic David W. Madden, West said he was also encouraged by three teachers, "amazing women who taught English, French, and Latin and Greek" at an otherwise "mediocre grammar school". They were, he said, "...marvelous to me. They encouraged me because they felt I had some gift for languages and should pursue that, and they groomed me." After graduating with honors in English from the University of Birmingham, West studied at Lincoln College, Oxford, and then as a Smith-Mundt scholar at Columbia University in the United States from 1952 to 1953, from which he graduated with a master's degree. His early life also included a stint in the Royal Air Force from 1954 to 1957, during which he achieved the rank of flight lieutenant. From 1957 he taught English literature at Memorial University of Newfoundland until, in 1962, he began teaching at Pennsylvania State University. It was there in the early 1970s that he met Diane Ackerman, who became his wife. Awards Among other honors, West's literary awards have included the American Academy of Arts and Letters award for literature (1985), the Lannan Prize for fiction (1993), and the Grand-Prix Halpèrine-Kaminsky Prize (1993) for best foreign book. West was named a "literary lion" by the New York Public Library and a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et Lettres) by the French government. Analysis West's work is highly varied in form and content. According to reviewer Lore Segal, "He has published poetry, criticism, essays, memoirs (including an extended, sometimes hilarious meditation on learning to swim in middle age) and...novels of an unsettling nonuniformity." Among the many writers who influenced West's work, writes literary critic David Madden, were Jean-Paul