American novelist, 88 years old as of late 2025. An idiosyncratic, divisive storyteller who at his best blurs distinctions between plot and digression and between history and conspiracy theory. His standout novels include "Gravity's Rainbow", a kaleidoscopic quasi-thriller that won the National Book Award in 1974, and "Vineland" (1990), about the lives of radicals after the radical moment fades. "Vineland" inspired Paul Thomas Anderson's film "One Battle After Another", which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2026. Anderson also adapted Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" (2009) into a film in 2014.
In late 2025 Pynchon published his ninth novel, "Shadow Ticket", set in 1932 and following a private eye dispatched from Milwaukee to Hungary.
Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we have?