Gore Vidal

Template:Stub Gore Vidal, born 1925, is an eminent, prolific American writer. His first novel, Williwaw, was published when he was 19 years old and deals with the experiences of men together on an army boat during the Second World War. It was well received and sold moderately well. Vidal became recognised as one of a new set of young writers emerging in the immediate post-war period. His third novel, The City and the Pillar, was the first American homosexual novel to become a nation-wide bestseller. This was in spite of numerous hostile reviews and several booksellers refusing to stock the novel. Several years later, Vidal published a revised edition. His other novels include the historical fictions Julian and Creation, the American historical fictions Burr, Washington DC, Lincoln, Empire and others, and the satirical fictions Myra Breckinridge, Myron, Messiah, Duluth, Kalki, Two Sisters, Live from Golgotha, and The Smithsonian Institution. He has also published many essays critical of American culture, social values and politics, as well as some literary essays and reviews. These have recently been collected in the book United States, which won the National Book Award. Vidal has published a memoir, Palimpsest, which was widely acclaimed. A second memoir, Point to Point Navigation, has also recently appeared.