Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer-winning author of ‘The Road,’ dead at 89

Cormac McCarthy, one of the world’s most influential and renowned writers whose career spanned nearly six decades and earned him a Pulitzer for “The Road,” has died. The fiction and drama writer was 89.

McCarthy died Tuesday of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his son, John, confirmed to The Post.

The Providence, Rhode Island-born author was known for his graphic and distinctive writing style, sparsely using punctuation and attribution, in stories that were typically set in the American Southwest, and he wrote all of them on an Olivetti Underwood Lettera 32 typewriter.

He published his first novel, “The Orchard Keeper” in 1965, and his second, “Outer Dark” in 1968.

“Child of God,” “Suttree” and “Blood Meridian” were published in the following years.

His 2006 novel “The Road” was inspired by his relationship with his son, John, whom he had with his third wife, Jennifer Winkley.

The book earned him the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

“The Road” was made into a 2009 movie starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the father-son duo in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Some of his other acclaimed novels, including “Child of God,” “All the Pretty Horses” and “No Country for Old Men,” were turned into movies, with the latter — featuring an all-star cast rounded out with Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson — winning four 2008 Oscars, including Best Picture.

“Cormac McCarthy changed the course of literature for 60 years, he demonstrated an unwavering dedication to his craft, and to exploring the infinite possibilities and power of the written word,” Nihar Malaviya, CEO of Penguin Random House, said in a statement.

“Millions of readers around the world embraced his characters, his mythic themes, and the intimate emotional truths he laid bare on every page, in brilliant novels that will remain both timely and timeless, for generations to come,” he added about his body of work.

His final novels, “The Passenger” and “Stella Maris” — interconnected books questioning the notions of God, truth and existence — were released late last year.

“Cormac McCarthy was our greatest living American author and one of the most notable authors of his or indeed any generation,” said Stacey Peebles, president of the Cormac McCarthy Society, in a statement to The Post. “In his long, rich life, lived in places as various as Knoxville, Santa Fe, and Ibiza, his voracious curiosity led him equally to the most abstract ideas and the most downtrodden of barflies, all the cracks and corners of human thought and experience, our endless potential for both coming together and violently wrenching apart. He never compromised his devotion to the beauty of language and the necessary art of storytelling.

“He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work — tapestries of character, history, philosophy, environment, and the moral questions that pull at all of us.”

McCarthy was notoriously private and did only a few interviews throughout his career.

In 1992, he told the New York Times, “Of all the subjects I’m interested in, it would be extremely difficult to find one I wasn’t. Writing is way, way down at the bottom of the list.”

McCarthy also sat down with Oprah Winfrey in 2007.

The talk show host questioned why the press-shy McCarthy previously turned down a speaking engagement that would have paid him $2,000 — despite desperately needing the money.

“You work your side of the street, I’ll work mine,” he reasoned.