La Farge

The writer Paul La Farge, whose novels played with history and narrative technique, has died at 52.

A La Farge novel could be packed with history, and, Mr. La Farge told the literary magazine TriQuarterly in 2017, that meant research.

Mr. La Farge’s novels and short stories defied easy categorization, but they were all characterized by a sort of writer's derring-do.

Mr. La Farge lived in Red Hook, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley, and was something of a magnet for a group of writers in that area, among them the novelist and memoirist Gary Shteyngart, who was a fan.

Mr. La Farge taught at Bennington College, Bard College and other institutions, including Columbia University, where the writer Rivka Galchen took several of his courses.