itmanesque work that began: «I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness... «. Among the most representative achievements of the Beats in the novel are Jack Kerouac s On the Road (1957), the chronicle of a soul - searching travel through the continent, and William S. Burroughs s Naked Lunch (1959), a more experimental work structured as a series of vignettes relating, among other things, the narrator s travels and experiments with hard drugs.the war novel specifically , there was a literary explosion in America during the post world war II era. Some of the best known of the works produced included Norman Mailer s The Naked and the Dead (1948), Joseph Heller s Catch - 22 (одна тисяча дев'ятсот шістьдесят одна ) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr s Slaughterhouse Five (1969) . The Moviegoer (1962), by Southern author Walker Percy winner of the National Book Award, was his attempt at exploring. «The dislocation of man in the modern age» .contrast, John Updike approached American life from a more reflective but no less subversive perspective. His 1960 novel Rabbit, Run , the first of four chronicling the rising and falling fortunes of Harry « Rabbit» Angstrom over the course of four decades against the backdrop of the major events of the second half of the 20 th century, broke new ground on its release in its characterization and detail of the American middle class and frank discussion of Taboo topics such as adultery. Notable among Updike s characteristic innovations was his use of present tense narration, his rich stylized language and his attention to sensual detail. His work is also deeply imbued with Christian themes. The two final installments of the Rabbit series, Rabbit is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990) were both awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other notable works include the Henry Bech novels (1970-1998), The Witches of East wick (1984), Roger s Version (1996) which literary critic Michiko Kakutani called arguably his finest.in the realm of African - American literature Ralph Ellison s тисяча дев'ятсот п'ятьдесят-дві novel Invisible man was instantly recognized as among the most powerful and important works of the immediate post-war years. Richard Wright was catapulted to fame by the publication in subsequent years of his now studied short story «The Man Who was almost a Man» (1939) and his controversial second novel «The native son» (1940). The most ambitious and challenging post - was writer novelist was William Gaddis, Joseph McElroy, John Hawkes, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo.
1.1 Stephen King s role in American literature
has revolutionized the horror genre by making it readable for everyone. His tongue in cheek examination of everyday life, while mixing in dark and unfathomable expressions of loss, death and the unknown make him not only imminently readable but a pop culture wordsmith.connections to things we find recognizable and to defining periods of life have made him an author often imitated. His style of gore and horror have been emulated by many modern horror writers all over the world and his contribution to American literature has shown that a book must not be written in perfect grammar or in a proper tone in order to gain fans or respect. The intense character development apparent in each book is a departure from the more over arching and generalized character development methods used before his time. He makes us understand every inch of a character before that character is eaten by a monster or thrown into a bottomless abyss and in doing such creates a bond of understanding that leaves readers horrified.November 2003, Stephen King received a lifetime achievement medal from the National Book Foundation for his distinguished contribution to American letters. The foundation s notion of distinguished contribution is a fairly broad one. The medal has been awarded to Oprah Winfrey as well as to Eudora Welty., America s most famous horror writer made the most of it. His acceptance speech commended the judges for having the courage to honor a man many people see as a rich hack, and then attacked the whole world of literary prize giving for its snobbery, its willful ignorance of popular and genre fiction and its tendency to grant itself social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with American culture.was characteristic performance for King, who has always been at once hungry for literary prestige and scornful of it, self-deprecating about his writing and combative when criticized. He gives the impression of being acutely conscious of his peculiar position in American letters, w...
