YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 2, ARMENPRESS. J.D. Salinger’s unseen works will be published as the late author’s son has confirmed that his father never stopped writing during the years of leading a very private life. 

Jerome David Salinger, the famously reclusive author of The Cather in the Rye, died in 2010.

For a long time it had been rumored that the author of one of the 20th century’s most enduring characters – Holden Caulfield – continued to write for decades he spent far from public view, long after his last work was published in 1965.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, his son Matt Salinger, an actor and producer, has finally revealed, definitively, that his father never stopped writing and that “all of what he wrote will at some point be shared”.

The unseen writing, Matt Salinger said, “will definitely disappoint people that he wouldn’t care about, but for real readers … I think it will be tremendously well received by those people and they will be affected in the way every reader hopes to be affected when they open a book. Not changed, necessarily, but something rubs off that can lead to change.”

A classic novel originally published for adults, The Cather in the Rye has since become popular among adolescent readers for its themes of angst and alienation.

The novel's protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion.

Holden Caulfield is one of the most enduring characters in 20th-century American fiction. It has been suggested that Salinger himself related so closely to Holden that he was protective of the character. This was the reason he was unwilling to allow filming of the book or use of the character by other writers. The book has also caused violent reactions: Several shootings have been associated with Salinger's novel, including Robert John Bardo's murder of Rebecca Schaeffer and John Hinckley Jr.'s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. Additionally, after fatally shooting John Lennon, Mark David Chapman was arrested with a copy of the book that he had purchased that same day, inside of which he had written: "To Holden Caulfield, From Holden Caulfield, This is my statement".

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan