Acclaimed American humorist remembered

David Rakoff, an award-winning American humorist, has died.

Doubleday and Anchor Books announced last Friday that Rakoff died a day earlier after a long illness.

Rakoff has written for The New York Times, Newsweek and other publications and was a contributor to United States public radio's 'This American Life'.

Last October, his essay collection Half Empty won the Thurber Prize for American Humour. His other best-selling books are Don't Get Too Comfortable and Fraud.

Rakoff's long-time editor, Bill Thomas, says the author's life was "infuriatingly short" but "rich beyond measure."

Thomas says the writer was charming and had a very quick mind. But most of all, "was a generous soul."

Doubleday plans to publish Rakoff's final work next year. The title will be Love, Dishonour, Marry, Die; Cherish, Perish.

Rakoff has been described as a storyteller who could elicit peals of laughter and tears of sympathy with his personal accounts of Christmas Day mountain-climbing, studying Tibetan Buddhism with Steven Seagal, flying on the Concorde and grappling with his frailties.

Publishing industry

Born in Montreal and raised in Toronto, Rakoff worked in the New York book publishing industry after studying at Columbia University.

In the early 1990s he connected with fellow humorist David Sedaris, whose essay about the Yuletide trials and tribulations of playing Crumpet the elf at Macy's he had heard him read on the radio.

Rakoff was encouraged to produce and perform more of his material, leading to a long-time association with the Public Radio International show.

In 2001, Rakoff published the essay collection Fraud, which included his accounts of training with Seagal, the action-movie star and holistic shaman, as well as travels to Iceland and an ascent of Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, dressed in large, ungainly potato-like Timberland boots that, he said, he disliked "with a fervour I usually reserve for people".

With characteristic mordancy, Rakoff added, "Just think, the shoes I wouldn't be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in."

Widely hailed

The book, in which Rakoff also wrote about being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease ("so highly curable that I like to refer to it as the dilettante cancer") in his early 20s, was widely hailed.

It was followed by two additional essay collections: Don't Get Too Comfortable, published in 2005, and Half Empty, which was released in 2010 and went on to win the Thurber Prize.

In addition to his work in the theatre and occasional roles on television, Rakoff appeared in and adapted the screenplay for The New Tenants, a film that won the Academy Award for best live action short in 2010.

In an essay published last year in The New York Times Magazine, Rakoff wrote about being treated for "a rather tenacious sarcoma around the area of my left collarbone".

Told by a medical technician to have "a fantastic day", Rakoff wrote: "Fantastic days are what you wish upon those who have so few sunrises left, those whose lungs are so lesion-spangled with new cancer that they should be embracing as much life as they can. Time's a-wasting, go out and have yourself a fantastic day!"

"Fantastic days," he continued, "are for goners".

Rakoff was 47 when he died.