James A(lbert) Michener, (1907-1997), was the American author of such books as Tales of the South Pacific (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948), Hawaii, Centennial, and Alaska. The majority of his over 40 titles are sweeping sagas of many generations in the life of a geographic locale. His non-fiction works include the 1992 memoir The World is My Home and Sports in America.