Angela's Ashes Author, Frank McCourt, Passes Away at 78

Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt will be remembered by millions for being an inspiring schoolteacher and writer. (AP Images)"]

Frank McCourt, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Angela’s Ashes," died Sunday of cancer at a hospice in New York City. He was 78. McCourt was receiving treatment for melanoma, a very serious form of skin cancer, but his condition worsened when he was diagnosed with meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.

While millions will remember the Brooklyn-born writer as the man who penned one of the most prolific biographies of our time; others will remember him as one of their favorite schoolteachers. McCourt taught English and creative writing in the New York public school system for three decades and didn’t finish writing "Angela’s Ashes" until three years after he retired from teaching in 1987. The book held the No. 1 spot of numerous bestseller lists worldwide and was picked up by over 4 million people and was translated into 20 different languages.

McCourt was born in New York on Aug. 19th, 1930 and left for Ireland with his parents who were hoping to go back home to make a better life for their children. As the story goes, McCourt’s family endured hardship after hardship before everything went from bad to worse. (If you haven't read "Angela's Ashes" yet, you really should. It'll make you cry and laugh from start to finish.)

When McCourt finally returned to the U.S. in 1949, he told Newsweek, "all I had was this story. It took me two years and all my life to write it."