Norman Mailer dies at 84

"Norman Mailer, the combative, controversial and often outspoken novelist who loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation, died early yesterday in Manhattan. He was 84.
The cause was acute renal failure, his family said.
Mr. Mailer burst on the scene in 1948 with ''The Naked and the Dead,'' a partly autobiographical novel about World War II, and for six decades he was rarely far from center stage. He published more than 30 books, including novels, biographies and works of nonfiction, and twice won the Pulitzer Prize: for ''The Armies of the Night'' (1968), which also won the National Book Award, and ''The Executioner's Song'' (1979)." To read more, see the NY Times

For a biographical sketch on the author, see also the Dictionary of Literary Biography.