Elizabeth Wurtzel: Prozac Nation author dies aged 52

Memoirist died in hospital in Manhattan

(Rex Features)

Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of Prozac Nation, has died at the age of 52.

Wurtzel was known for detailing her struggles with depression and drug addiction in a best-selling memoir that sparked a boom in confessional writing.

She died on Tuesday 7 January at a hospital in Manhattan, her husband, Jim Freed, said. Wurtzel announced in 2015 that she had breast cancer. Despite undergoing a double mastectomy, the breast cancer had metastasized to her brain.

The immediate cause of death was complications from leptomeningeal disease, which occurs when cancer spreads to the cerebrospinal fluid.

Wurtzel became a Gen X celebrity at 26 with the publication of Prozac Nation.

She later described the genre-defining 1994 memoir as “a joke that started the whole world crying”. The book chronicled her difficult childhood, her turbulent time at Harvard and her depression throughout both those periods of her life.

Wurtzel has been credited with inspiring memoirists Lena Dunham and Cat Marnell.