Norman Mailer was born to a Jewish family in New Jersey in 1923 and grew up in New York City. He entered Harvard College at age 16, where he demonstrated an early aptitude for literature by winning a prestigious short story contest at age 18. He graduated with a degree in aeronautical engineering and was drafted into the US military in 1944. He served in the Philippines in communications roles, volunteered for reconnaissance patrols, and spent time in Japan after the war ended. While he was enrolled in Sorbonne University in Paris he wrote The Naked and the Dead, which was published in 1948 and immediately hailed as one of the most realistic and important novels on the topic of World War II.

Mailer’s subsequent novels achieved less commercial success and mixed critical acclaim, in part due to his commitment to using his novels to express his strong political views. He was involved in the countercultural movement and known for being provocative, controversial, and occasionally belligerent. He spent time in jail for civil disobedience and for stabbing his second wife, an attack that almost killed her. He pled guilty to assault and received three years of probation.

Mailer’s most significant literary innovations were in the field of journalism. Mailer helped found and wrote for The Village Voice, a magazine that supported the countercultural movement, and he contributed to the rise of what became known as New Journalism, a technique that combined the factual research and objective reporting of journalism with the imaginative and narrative techniques of fiction writing. Armies of the Night (1968), based on Mailer’s experiences as a peace activist, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He won a second Pulitzer Prize for The Executioner’s Song (1979), based on the life of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore. Much of Mailer’s fiction was either autobiographical or based on research, like the CIA history in Harlot’s Ghost (1991). In addition, many of his works confronted difficult or controversial subjects. By the time of his death in 2007, Mailer was accepted as a formative force in later 20th century American literature.