Norman Mailer and the Nobel Prize

Authors

Nobel Prize nomination, literary achievement, genre innovation, New Journalism, nonfiction novel, American culture, literary reputation

A scholar shares his 1980 letter nominating Norman Mailer for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Morris Dickstein, City University of New York

Morris Dickstein is Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is a widely published reviewer and critic, perhaps best known for his book on the 1960s, Gates of Eden (1977, 1997), which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. His most recent books are Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945–1970 (2002), A Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World (2005), and Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (2009), which received the 2010 Ambassador Book Award in American Studies from the English-Speaking Union. He has served as vice-chair of the New York Council for the Humanities, on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, and as president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.