List of Famous people who died at 59

Ashitha was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature, best known for her short stories, poems and translations. She contributed in popularising haiku poems in Malayalam through her translations and her stories were known for the sensitive portrayal of life. She was a recipient of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Story as well as other honours including Padmarajan Award, Lalithambika Anterjanam Smaraka Sahitya Award and Edasseri Award.

General Carlos Prats González was a Chilean Army officer and politician. He served as a minister in Salvador Allende's government while Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. Immediately after General Augusto Pinochet's September 11, 1973 coup, Prats went into voluntary exile in Argentina. The following year, he and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, were assassinated in Buenos Aires by a car bomb planted by the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional.

María Rivas was a Venezuelan Latin jazz singer, composer, and painter.

Jayant was an Indian film actor.

Barbara Charline Jordan was an American lawyer, educator and politician who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. She was best known for her eloquent opening statement at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon, and as the first African-American as well as the first woman to deliver a keynote address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. She was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1978 to 1980. She was the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery. Jordan's work as chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which recommended reducing legal immigration by about one-third, is frequently cited by American immigration restrictionists.

Ivan "Dzhonrid" Alexandrovich Svanidze, was a Soviet academic who specialized in agriculture and African Studies. He was the nephew of Joseph Stalin through his first wife, Ketevan Svanidze, and the third husband of Stalin's youngest daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.

Sutan Bhatoegana Siregar was an Indonesian politician of the Democratic Party. Sutan was a member of the People's Representative Council Commission VII of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR-RI) for the period 2009-2014 were selected from the 2009 legislative elections from the first North Sumatra constituency that includes Medan, Deli Serdang, Serdang Badagai, and Tebing Tinggi by the Democratic Party. Sutan was one of the founders of the Democratic Party, he was recorded as a founder and secretary of the Communication Forum Deklarator (FKPD) Democratic Party, although it is considered the unofficial forum by internal Democratic Party.

Jean-Noël Tassez was a French journalist, mainly focusing on human affairs.

Tarouf Abdulkhair Adam Muhammad al-Talal Hawsawi, known professionally as Etab, was a Saudi Arabian singer active from the 1960s to the 1990s. She was from and born in Saudi Arabia, but moved to Egypt soon after her second marriage to an Egyptian man in 1978. Many Arab music historians agree that she was forced out of Saudi Arabia at the orders of then Saudi King Khalid due to her musical concerts considered risque in Saudi Arabia at that time.; in 1983 she became an Egyptian citizen.

Shizuko Ihara , professionally known as Mina Aoe , was a Japanese female enka singer who had a series of popular hits in the late 1960s and continued charting late into her career.