Bel Kaufman, a former New York City schoolteacher who shot to fame with her bestselling book, “Up the Down Staircase,” died Friday at her home in Manhattan.
She was 103.
Her daughter, Thea Goldstine, confirmed the death, the New York Times reported.
Born in Germany and raised in what is now the Ukraine, Kaufman arrived in the city at age 12.
She went on to graduate magna cum laude from Hunter College and earn a master’s degree in English from Columbia University.
Kaufman spent years substitute-teaching in a series of city public schools. She yearned to become a full-time educator, but her Russian accent kept her from passing the New York City Board of Examiners oral exam.
She finally got her regular license and taught for several years.
On the side, she worked as a writer. And in 1965, she published the novel that changed her life — a portrait of a young city school teacher battling a soul-crushing bureaucracy and a blizzard of inane rules.
The book turned into a film, and Kaufman turned into a celebrity.
Suddenly, she was in demand as a speaker before educational and civic groups, the Times reported.
She kept writing — publishing her second novel, “Love, etc.” in 1979 — and teaching.
At age 99, she was hired in 2011 to teach a class on Jewish humor at Hunter College.
“I’m too busy to grow old,” Kaufman said in a 2011 interview.
Ms. Kaufman’s first marriage, to Sydney Goldstine, ended in divorce, the Times reported.
Kaufman is survived by her second husband, Sidney Gluck; daughter, Thea, and son, Jonathan Goldstine; brother, Sherwin Kaufman; and a granddaughter.
