Reports of Noam Chomsky’s death are false, his wife clarifies

Noam Chomsky’s wife, Valeria Wasserman Chomsky, says reports Tuesday that the famed linguist and activist had died are untrue.

“No, it is false,” she wrote Tuesday in response to an emailed query from The Associated Press. Noam Chomsky, 95, had been hospitalized in Brazil while recovering from a stroke suffered a year ago, Valeria Chomsky told the AP last week. But the Beneficencia Portuguesa hospital in Sao Paulo said in a statement that Chomsky was discharged on Tuesday to continue his treatment at home.

Earlier Tuesday, Chomsky was trending on X as false reports of his death abounded. Jacobin and The New Statesman published obituaries for Chomsky, though the former changed its headline from “We Remember Noam Chomsky” to “Let’s Celebrate Noam Chomsky.” The New Statesman took its essay by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis down altogether. Brazilian news site Diario do Centro do Mundo also took down its story announcing Chomsky’s death and issued a correction.

The Chomskys have had a residence in Brazil since 2015. Noam Chomsky, known to millions for his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, taught for decades at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2017, he joined the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson.