Norman Mailer and Richard Wollheim

Society

Living like heroes

• 15 November 2007

Taken from The New Statesman 29 September 1961 The American writer Norman Mailer, who died on 10 November, visited Britain in 1961 to launch his book, Advertisements for Myself. He was interviewed for the New Statesman by the philosopher Richard Wollheim. In the resulting question-and-answer session, Mailer revealed himself to be an individualistic hellraiser with an alarming taste for violence, a hip philosophy of physical action and more ego than id. Selected by Robert Taylor