Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer January 31 1923 November 10 2007 was an American novelist journalist essayist playwright activist filmmaker and actor In a career spanning over six decades Mailer had 11 bestselling books at least one in each of the seven decades after World War IImore than any other postwar American writer His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948 and brought him early renown His 1968 nonfiction novel Armies of the Night won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction as well as the National Book Award His bestknown work is widely considered to be The Executioners Song the 1979 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction or New Journalism along with Truman Capote Joan Didion Hunter S Thompson and Tom Wolfe a genre which uses the style and devices of literary fiction in factual journalism He was a cultural commentator and critic expressing his views through his novels journalism frequent press appearances and essays the most famous and reprinted of which is The White Negro In 1955 he and three others founded The Village Voice an arts and politicsoriented weekly newspaper distributed in Greenwich Village In 1960 Mailer was convicted of assault and served a threeyear probation after he stabbed his wife Adele Morales with a penknife nearly killing her In 1969 he ran an unsuccessful campaign to become the mayor of New York Mailer was married six times and had nine children Description above from the Wikipedia article Norman Mailer licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia