American · 1896–1970
American novelist who made the novel a newsreel. Born illegitimate to a wealthy lawyer, he drove ambulances in World War I and returned to write experimental fiction. Manhattan Transfer captured New York through collage technique. The U.S.A. trilogy—The 42nd Parallel, 1919, The Big Money—mixed narrative, biography, newsreel, and stream of consciousness to portray America. His politics moved from left to right; his innovations stayed central to American modernism. The technique influenced everyone from Sartre to Salman Rushdie.