Norman Mailer was a literary pugilist, attacking his subjects and opponents as writer, debater and cultural provocateur. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, fighter, feuder, journalist and poet, Mailer was a key figure as post-war America roiled through the era of civil rights, Vietnam and women’s liberation. On Thursday, his massive personal archive more than 1,000 boxes of manuscripts, letters, magazines, drawings, photographs and more opened to the public at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas. Mailer sold the archive to the Ransom Center for $2.5 million in 2005. He died Nov. 10. It has taken archivists two years to catalog the collection for viewing by scholars, researchers and the public. Mailer became famous with his debut novel, 1948’s “The Naked and the Dead,” which drew on his experiences as a soldier in World War II. Other best-known works include “The Armies of the Night” and “The Executioner’s Song.”
The Associated Press
Norman Mailer Archive Now Open to Public at University of Texas’ Ransom Center
(Jan. 3)
