FILE: Two- time Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer has died
- 00:00:20
- ITN Source
FILE: Two- time Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer has died
Renowned author and pulitzer prize winner Norman Mailer has passed away. His family said he died of kidney failure. Norman Mailer, the pugnacious two-times Pulitzer Prize winner who was a dominating presence on the U.S. literary scene across seven decades, died on Saturday (November 10) of kidney failure, his family said. Mailer, 84, had undergone lung surgery in October. "With great sorrow, the family of Norman Mailer announces his passing on November 10, at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City," the statement said. In more than 40 books and a torrent of essays, Mailer provoked and enraged readers with his strident views on U.S. political life and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Mailer's first book, "The Naked and the Dead," is considered one of the finest novels about World War Two and made him a celebrity at age 25 when published in 1948. Mailer's works were often filled with violence, sexual obsession and views that angered feminists. He later reconsidered many of his old positions but never surrendered his right to speak his mind. Detractors considered him an intellectual bully and he feuded with fellow authors like Truman Capote, William Styron, Tom Wolfe and Norman Podhoretz. Feminists like Germaine Greer and Kate Millett considered him the quintessential male chauvinist pig. Some of the feuds even turned physical for the former college boxer, who stabbed one of his six wives at a party and also decked writer Gore Vidal. Mailer lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and had an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. He is survived by his wife Norris Church Mailer, and nine children, the family said. They planned a private service and interment to be announced next week, and a memorial service in New York in coming months.
ITN Source | November 11, 2007
