Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 - November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.

Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.

Controversial, celebrated post-WWII American writer Norman Mailer first gained recognition at age 25 for his scathing anti-war novel, "The Naked and the Dead" (1948). Mailer directed three "underground" features in the late 1960s--during one of which he and actor Rip Torn argued so violently that Torn attacked him with a hammer--and has made appearances in works by avant-garde directors such as Kenneth Anger and Jonas Mekas. Several of Mailer's novels have been made into feature films, one of which--the forgettable, noirish Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987)--he also directed. Son Michael Mailer is a film producer and daughter Kate Mailer is an actress.