Prescott Arizona News and Events - Read It News Magazine

Author Tony Hillerman passed away Sunday, October 26th in Albuquerque aged 83.

The Edgar Award winning novelist was best known for his Leaphorn/Chee mystery series, set against the backdrop of the Najavo culture of the American Southwest. According to Anne Hillerman, the author's daughter, her father's health had declined in the past few years.

Hillerman's interest in Native Americans was germinated by childhood experiences in Sacred Heart, Oklaloma. He attended St. Mary's Academy, a school for Potawatomie Indian girls, and loved to listen to the local storytellers who gathered at his parent's store. After fighting in France during World War II, his curiosity about native culture was renewed after witnessing a Navajo-curing ceremony for Marines recently returned from the war.

Following many years of reading and studying about the Navajo, Hillerman was to draw on that post-war experience in his first novel, The Blessing Way. According to the Associated Press, his first agent advised him that if he wanted to get published, he would have to "get rid of that Indian stuff."

Over the course of 18 novels, readers grew to love Hillerman's memorable characters Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, each a Navajo Tribal Policeman in the Four Corners region.

Hillerman's novels proved a Godsend for the area, spurring a massive tourist influx. Visitors began travelling to the Four Corners to see the magnificent landmarks and local culture so wonderfully described in Hillerman's books.

"The landscape out there just always blew him away. It's just an incredibly vast and gorgeous, gorgeous country," Anne Hillerman said about the settings for her father's books.

A fifty-year New Mexico resident, he was considered a cultural icon by many in the region. Of the many honors Hillerman received, he was most touched by Special Friend of the Dineh award presented to him by the Navajo Tribal Council in 1987.

"I want Americans to stop thinking of Navajos as primitive persons, to understand that they are sophisticated and complicated," Hillerman once said.

Hillerman survived two heart attacks and surgeries for prostate and bladder cancer. Despite his health problems, he continued writing even as his eyesight and hearing declined and rheumatoid arthritis made typing painful.

"I'm getting old," he declared in 2002, "but I still like to write."

Hillerman is survived by his wife Marie, and six children.

This article originally stated that Hillerman died on Saturday. It was ammended to state that he passed away on Sunday.