In an age in which it seems like everyone is talking at the same time, Elizabeth Wurtzel — who exploded on the scene with her gripping 1994 memoir Prozac Nation — had little trouble making herself heard, in a voice that was unmistakably her own. Her life never stopped being an object of fascination — including when, at age 47, she got married, an event the New York Times reported under the headline. “Elizabeth Wurtzel Finds Someone to Love Her.”

When Wurtzel was diagnosed with breast cancer, she directed her eviscerating prose not at the cancer, but at anyone who pitied her for it. Wurtzel died today at the age of 52. Read her blistering Guardian essay, “I Have Cancer. Don’t Tell Me You’re Sorry.” And read her New York Times obituary here.