Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, filmmaker, actor and political activist. His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948. His bestknown work was widely considered to be The Executioners Song, which was published in 1979, and for which he won one of his two Pulitzer Prizes. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, his book Armies of the Night was awarded the National Book Award.
Mailer was born to a Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey. His father, Isaac Barnett Mailer, was a South Africanborn accountant, and his mother, Fanny , ran a housekeeping and nursing agency. Mailers sister, Barbara, was born in 1927.
Source: Wikipedia