In his beloved New Orleans-set comic novel A Confederacy of Dunces, Toole created the definitive depiction of the Crescent City, its distinctive neighborhoods, and its motley cast of residents and their colorful accents. Toole’s posthumously published masterpiece won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. Its protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly, remains one of the most unforgettably hilarious antiheroes of American literature.

Toole’s mother, Thelma, thought so highly of Tulane that upon her death in 1984, she left the university half of her estate, helping to establish the John Kennedy Toole Scholarship Fund to benefit “brilliant and needy authors and playwrights,” as well as bequeathed her son’s papers to the university’s Special Collections Division. This legacy ensures that Toole’s influence at Tulane remains as indelible as A Confederacy of Dunces, the ultimate love letter to New Orleans.