American literature of the second half of 20 century

During the 1960s Mailer developed a vivid journalistic style with the intention of presenting actual events with all the drama and complexity found in fiction. His 1968 book Armies of the Night was the culmination of these efforts. The work, which in 1969 won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, was an account of Mailer’s experiences at the Washington peace rallies of 1968, where he was jailed and fined. Mailer’s other works of this era include Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968), about the Republican and Democratic national conventions of 1968, and Of a Fire on the Moon (1971), which recounts the first piloted moon landing. Mailer further explored the theme of violence in The Executioner’s Song (1979), a novel about convicted murderer Gary Gilmore. The book was awarded the 1980 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

• During the 1960s Mailer developed a vivid journalistic style with the intention of presenting actual events with all the drama and complexity found in fiction. His 1968 book Armies of the Night was the culmination of these efforts. The work, which in 1969 won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, was an account of Mailer’s experiences at the Washington peace rallies of 1968, where he was jailed and fined. Mailer’s other works of this era include Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968), about the Republican and Democratic national conventions of 1968, and Of a Fire on the Moon (1971), which recounts the first piloted moon landing. Mailer further explored the theme of violence in The Executioner’s Song (1979), a novel about convicted murderer Gary Gilmore. The book was awarded the 1980 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
• Mailer’s other books include Ancient Evenings (1983), the first novel of a projected trilogy on Egypt; Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1984), a detective story that was made into a motion picture in 1987; Harlot’s Ghost (1991), a lengthy novel about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Oswald’s Tale (1995), about Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of United States president John F. Kennedy; and Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man: an Interpretative Biography (1995).