American · 1923–2007
Norman Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize twice—for "The Armies of the Night" (1968) and "The Executioner's Song" (1979), the latter a 1,000-page "true life novel" about Gary Gilmore, the first man executed in America after the death penalty's reinstatement. Mailer was a public intellectual who courted controversy: he ran for mayor of New York, stabbed his wife at a party, and feuded with feminists. His novels, journalism, and ego dominated American letters for decades.