Norman Mailer Dead at 84

Literary legend's 6-decade career included 2 Pulitzers
By Marie Morris,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 10, 2007 6:45 AM CST
Norman Mailer Dead at 84
Author Norman Mailer reflects on turning 80 during an interview in his Brooklyn Heights apartment in this Jan. 28, 2003 file photo, in New York. Mailer, the macho prince of American letters who for decades reigned as the country's literary conscience and provocateur, died of renal failure early Saturday,...   (Associated Press)

Norman Mailer, one of the 20th century's literary lions and a pioneer of the genre that came to be known as New Journalism, died this morning. He was 84. His career spanned 6 decades and more than 40 books, from 1948's The Naked and the Dead to this year's The Castle in the Forest, and he was nearly as well known for his colorful personal life.

A pugnacious, larger-than-life character who courted publicity and controversy, Mailer had six wives—one of whom he famously stabbed at a party in 1960—ran for mayor of New York, cofounded the Village Voice, and won two Pulitzer Prizes, for The Armies of the Night (also a National Book Award winner) and The Executioner's Song. Survivors include nine children and at least one archrival, Gore Vidal. (More Norman Mailer stories.)

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