Norman Mailer dies

Via NYTimes.com

Photo: Christina Pabst

Norman Mailer, the combative, controversial and often outspoken novelist who loomed over American letters longer and larger than any writer of his generation, died today in Manhattan. He was 84. He died of acute renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital early this morning, his family said.

Photo: Harry Ransom Center

After the publication of The Naked and the Dead, Mailer, then a 25-year-old literary novice, was suddenly famous and at the dawn of a prolific career in which he would loom as one of the major U.S. writers of the twentieth century. He would also continue to be measured by others as well as by himself against his 1948 success.

In 1969 Mr. Mailer ran a second time for mayor of New York City. He was a secessionist advocating that New York City become the 51 state.

Gay Talese, left, with E. L. Doctorow and Norman Mailer at a gathering in support of Salman Rushdie held by the PEN writers' group on February 22, 1989. (Photo: Getty Images)

In 1984 Mr. Mailer was elected president of PEN American Center and was the main force in bringing together writers from all over the world for a much publicized literary conference called “The Writer's Imagination and the Imagination of the State.”

Mr. Mailer's last novel was The Castle on the Forest.

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