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Mailer Norman 1923 - 2007 (84)

Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision.


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The Naked and the Dead



Norman Mailer (January 31, 1923 - November 10, 2007) was an American author, journalist, playwright and director, co-founder of the "New Journalism" a combination of literature with real events. He was born in New Jersey to a middle-class Jewish family, his father was an accountant and his mother owned a housekeeper and nursing agency. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York and in 1939 he was accepted to Harvard University. He studied aeronautics and at the same time he was writing; he published his first short story when he was 18. He graduated in 1943 and was drafted by the US Army to serve in World War II in the South Pacific. In 1948 he enrolled at the Sorbonne University in Paris and published a book that made him world famous: "The Dead and the Naked", based on his personal experiences from the war. His subsequent books Barbary Coast (1951) and Deer Park (1955) received poor reviews, and in the 1950s he was more famous for his wild parties at his Manhattan house, the boxing he played in and out of the ring, for his excessive alcohol and drug use and his volatile love life. In 1955 he spearheaded the founding of the "Village Voice", and in the years that followed he enjoyed great success with novels, political essays, plays, biographies and reviews.

A critic of US pro-war policies, he covered the Republican and Democratic Party conventions and was arrested in 1967 for his participation in protests against the Vietnam War. Two years later he unsuccessfully contested the nomination of the Democratic Party for the position of candidate for mayor of New York.

Among his best-known works are: The Presidential Papers (1963), An American Dream (1965), Armies of the Night (1968), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, "Miami and the Siege of Chicago ” (1968), “A Fire in the Moon” (1970), Marilyn (1973), “The Executioner's Song” (1979), Pulitzer Prize winner. He also wrote biographies such as Picasso's and during the late 60s he directed a series of improvised experimental films while in 1987 he adapted and directed his novel "The Cruel Don't Dance".

He was married six times and had eight children from his various marriages, while also adopting another. He died of acute kidney failure on the morning of November 10, 2007, following a lung surgery at a Manhattan hospital.