-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Author Frank McCourt , whose tragic childhood became creative grist for his first book , the Pulitzer Prize-winning `` Angela 's Ashes , '' died Sunday , according to the Web site of his publisher , Simon & Shuster . He was 78 . Frank McCourt won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for `` Angela 's Ashes . '' McCourt taught creative writing to high school students in New York City for 30 years before achieving literary acclaim with the 1996 biography . `` Angela 's Ashes , '' named after his mother , also won the National Book Critics Circle Award . It was translated and sold throughout the world . In the book , McCourt described a desperate childhood marked by severe poverty , malnutrition , neglect , infectious disease and loss . `` When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all . It was , of course , a miserable childhood : the happy childhood is hardly worth your while . Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood , and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood , '' he wrote . EW : A tribute to Frank McCourt McCourt wrote the two other memoirs , `` Tis '' and `` Teacher Man , '' as sequels to `` Angela 's Ashes , '' and penned the children 's book `` Angela and the Baby Jesus . '' The author was born to Angela and Malachy McCourt on August 19 , 1930 , in Brooklyn , New York , to Irish immigrants . The family fled to Limerick , Ireland , four years later , during the Great Depression era , only to become mired in even more gut-wrenching poverty . Three of the couple 's seven children died . Malachy McCourt , an alcoholic who managed to keep jobs only a few weeks at a time , left the family scrounging to survive . Yet , he also brought joy to his children , as the younger McCourt wrote in `` Angela 's Ashes '' : `` Before bed we sit around the fire and if we say , ` Dad , tell us a story , ' he makes up one about someone in the lane and the story will take us all over the world , up in the air , under the sea and back to the lane . Everyone in the story is a different colour and everything is upside down and backward . Motor cars and planes go underwater and submarines fly through the air . Sharks sit in trees and giant salmon sport with kangaroos on the moon . Polar bears wrestle with elephants in Australia and penguins teach Zulus how to play bagpipes . '' In October 2006 , McCourt told the BBC that he saw his family 's struggles as part of the human experience , without casting his father as a villain . He also expressed sorrow about his mother . `` First of all , I feel so sorry that I did n't understand more about her life and her misery and the deaths of three children , '' McCourt said . `` I had one daughter and if she had a cold , I was up all night . If she had the sniffles , I was running to her little crib or her bed . ... When I was growing up and as I grew to manhood , I really did n't understand my mother 's pain . '' Asked about his Irish-American identity , McCourt told the BBC : `` I 'm actually a New Yorker , because that 's what I feel passionately about . ... New York is the place that gets me all excited . '' He returned to the United States at 19 and spent decades coming to grips with his youth . `` I dealt with my past , and my future and my present by writing about it . And it 's really , it 's a gift . I wish everybody had it , because it eases all kinds of distress , '' he told the BBC . McCourt is survived by his wife , Ellen , and other family members , including brother Malachy McCourt , who is an actor and writer .