US novelist. With great stylistic verve, he created a bizarre, labyrinthine world in his books, the first of which was
V (1963), a parodic detective story in pursuit of the endlessly elusive Lady V. It was followed by the shorter comic quest novel,
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), before his gargantuan tour-de-force
Gravity's Rainbow (1973; National Book Award), which represents a major achievement in 20th-century literature, with its fantastic imagery and esoteric language drawn from mathematics and science.
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