American · 1930–2024
John Barth won the 1973 National Book Award for "Chimera" and helped define postmodern fiction in America. The American author's novels—"The Sot-Weed Factor," "Giles Goat-Boy," "Lost in the Funhouse"—play with narrative convention, genre, and the relationship between reader and text. Barth wrote about writing, making metafiction both intellectually rigorous and genuinely funny. He died in 2024, leaving a body of work that changed what American novels could do.