Sol Yurick, author of The Warriors (1965), has died. The novel — which in 1979 led to the classic cult film of the same name — was inspired by Yurick’s experiences working in the New York City Department of Welfare.
“Some of the children of these families were what was then called juvenile delinquents,” Mr. Yurick wrote in an introduction to an edition of “The Warriors” published in 2003. “Many of them belonged to fighting gangs. Some of these gangs numbered in the hundreds; they were veritable armies. This social phenomenon was viewed, on the one hand, as the invasion of the barbarians, only this time they came from the inside rather than from the outside.”
“Sol Yurick, Author of ‘The Warriors,’ Dies at 87” (NYT, thanks Gil Kaufman!)