One of the most prominent figures of postwar American literature, he gained wide attention with his first, bestselling book The Naked and the Dead 1948, a naturalistic war novel. His later works, which use sexual and scatological material, show his personal engagement with history, politics, and psychology. Always a pugnacious and controversial writer, his polemics on the theory and practice of violence-as-sex brought him into direct conflict with feminist Kate Millet in a series of celebrated debates during the 1970s. His essay White Negro in Advertisements for Myself 1959, defining the "hipster" hero, was a seminal statement of the artistic need to rebel against cultural conformity. His other books include his dark thriller of sex and power, An American Dream 1965, the fictionalized antiwar journalism of The Armies of the Night 1968 (Pulitzer Prize), The Executioner's Song 1979 (Pulitzer Prize), about convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, and two massive novels, Ancient Evenings 1983, dealing with Egyptian life and mythologies, and Harlot's Ghost 1991, about the CIA. A combative public figure, Mailer cofounded the magazine Village Voice in the 1950s, edited Dissent, and in 1969 ran for mayor of New York City. Pablo and Fernande appeared 1994.
