1) Jean-Pierre Duprey: was a French poet and a sculptor. He committed suicide by hanging himself at the age of 29. Three days before his death, he told a friend: “I am allergic to this planet”.
2) John Berryman: was an American poet who suffered from alcoholism throughout his life and killed himself by jumping off a bridge at the age of 57.
3) Ernest Hemingway: was an American author and journalist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He shot himself in the head when he was 61.
4) Sarah Kane: was an English playwright. At the age of 28, and two days after overdosing on prescription drugs, she hung herself by her shoelaces in a bathroom in a hospital.
5) Anne Sexton: was an American poet who suffered from severe mental illness most of her life. She killed herself through starting the engine of her car and locking the garage door; hence dying of carbon monoxide poisoning aged 45.
6) Sylvia Plath: was an American poet, novelist and short story writer who suffered from mental illness throughout most of her life. She killed herself by sticking her head in the oven and hence died of carbon monoxide poisoning, aged 30.
7) David Foster Wallace: was an American novelist and essayist. He suffered from severe depression and hung himself when his medication ceased to work at the age of 46.
8) May Ayim: was an Afro-German poet and activist. She killed herself by jumping from the thirteenth floor of a building at the age of 36.
9) Hunter S. Thompson: was an American author and journalist. He shot himself in the head at the age of 67. His suicide note, which he left for his wife, read: “No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt.”
10) Richard Brautigan: was an American poet, short story writer and novelist. He suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression. When he was 48, he shot himself in the head and his body was found more than a month later. His suicide note read: “Messy, isn’t it?”
11) Virginia Woolf: was an English author, essayist and short story writer. She killed herself by filling her pockets with rocks then jumping into the sea and thus drowning at the age of 59. Her last note to her husband read: “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness…”
12) Frank Stanford: was an American poet. He ended his life by shooting himself in the heart three times at the age of 29.
13) Vladimir Mayakovsky: was a Russian poet and playwright. At the age of 36, he shot himself in the heart, leaving behind an unfinished poem as a suicide note:
And so they say-
“the incident dissolved”
the love boat smashed up
on the dreary routine.
I’m through with life
and [we] should absolve
from mutual hurts, afflictions and spleen.
14) Ingrid Jonker: was a South African poet. At the age of 32, she drowned herself. Her father’s response to the discovery of her corpse was: “They can throw her back into the sea for all I care”.
