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Biography
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. (born May 8, 1937) is an American author/writer. Upon graduation from CU., Pynchon had many options including teaching creative writing at Cornell, becoming a disk jockey, or a film critic for Esquire. "Gravity's Rainbow" was published in 1973. The year after it shared the National Book Award for fiction with Isaac Bashevis Singer's "A Crown of Feathers". It was also unanimously selected by the judges for the Pulitzer Prize in literature, but the selection was overruled by the Pulitzer advisory board whose members called it "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene."
Awards & recognition
- MacArthur Fellows Program · 1988
- William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters · 1975
- National Book Award · 1974
- William Faulkner Foundation Award · 1964
- National Book Award — Fiction · 2013 · nominated
Show all 10 awards →
- Locus Award — Best Science Fiction Novel · 2007 · nominated
- Locus Award — Best Novel · 1974 · nominated
- Nebula Award — Best Novel · 1974 · nominated
- Pulitzer Prize — Fiction · 1974 · nominated
- National Book Award — Fiction · 1965 · nominated
