Michael T. Kaufman

Kaufman was born in Paris as the only child of Polish Jewish refugees Adam and Pauline Kaufman; Pauline was a teacher and Adam was an economist. His father had been imprisoned in Poland for nine years as a communist revolutionary. In 1940, when the Nazis invaded France, the Kaufman family moved to Spain and in 1941 sailed from Lisbon to New York City. He grew up in Manhattan and earned money at age 13 by selling ice cream. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1954 and obtained his degree from City College in 1959. ==Career==

After graduating college, Kaufman taught school in Harlem but quit after a few months to become a copy boy at the Times in 1959. He was married to Rebecca in 1960. The couple had two sons—one of whom is the writer Seth Kaufman—and a daughter. During his forty years at The New York Times, He also wrote for The New York Times Magazine; after retiring in 1999, he wrote obituaries of world and national leaders. His books were well received and largely drew on the knowledge he had gained from his work as a journalist, the deep connection he likely had with his father, a Polish emigre with a considerable knowledge of both economics, and the political history of Eastern Europe. ==Death==

Kaufman died from pancreatic cancer at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center (now Mount Sinai Morningside) on January 15, 2010, at the age of 71. Several other obituaries he worked on in advance appeared in the paper in the following years, with one (for Kenneth Kaunda, the former president of Zambia) published more than 11 years after Kaufman died, and another, for American diplomat Henry Kissinger, published almost 14 years after Kaufman died. ==Works==

Kaufman wrote seven books and thousands of articles that covered wars, revolutions, politics, and the 1960s in America. • In Their Own Good Time (Saturday Review Press, 1973) • Rooftops & Alleys: Adventures with a City Kid (Alfred A. Knopf, 1973) • Mean Streets (Award, 1973), novelization of the screenplay by Martin Scorsese and Mardik Martin • The Nickel Ride (Award, 1974), novelization of the screenplay by Eric Roth • The Gun (Award, 1974), novelization of the teleplay by Richard Levinson & William Link • Mad Dreams, Saving Graces: Poland: A Nation in Conspiracy (1989) • George Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002) • The Collapse of Communism (1991) • The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire (1992) ==References==