Field of Dreams novelist WP Kinsella dies, aged 81

Canadian author W.P. Kinsella, whose book inspired the film “Field of Dreams”, has died.

His literary agent Carolyn Swayze issued a statement Friday confirming his death, calling him “a unique, creative and outrageously opinionated man”.

Kinsella died of assisted suicide, according to multiple Canadian news outlets.

In 1982, Kinsella turned his pen to his first novel, Shoeless Joe, the tale of an Iowan farmer who plows under his crops to build a baseball field, after voices begin whispering to him to “build it, and they will come”. The movie, which starred Kevin Costner, grossed $85 million worldwide and is considered one of the greatest baseball movies of all time. Kinsella has asked there be no memorial service.

Kinsella’s writing-which included nearly 30 books, including novels, poetry collections, and more than a dozen short story anthologies-focused on two major themes: First Nation peoples, and baseball.

Many of the Yale, B.C., writer’s books were about baseball, and in 2011, he won the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame Jack Graney award for his contributions to the game in Canada.

CBC News also notes that Kinsella had recently returned to writing for the first time since suffering a head injury in a 1997 auto accident.

Kinsella said he was inspired by Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man when he read the book of science fiction short stories when he was about 18.

But it is the baseball-themed fantasy Shoeless Joe that he is best known for.

Kinsella was born in Edmonton in 1935.

“He essentially told me a couple of weeks ago, ‘You know, I’m not going to be here much longer, so whatever questions you’ve got, let’s get them done, ‘” Steele said in an interview with CBC Radio One’s On the Coast (via CBC.com).

“I think he’s done that for a lot of people”, Steele added. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in creative writing from the University of Victoria nearly, at the age of 40, and a Masters of Fine Arts in English from the University of Iowa in 1978.

His final work, titled Russian Dolls, will be published by next year, according to his agent.

Before becoming a professional author, he taught English at the University of Calgary, the biography said.

Kinsella was married three times.

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