, '' 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
-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