David Markson

David Markson
David Markson in September 2007
Born	(1927-12-20)December 20, 1927 Albany, New York
Died	(body found) June 4, 2010(2010-06-04) (aged 82) Greenwich Village, New York
Occupation	Novelist
Education	M.A., Columbia University
Period	postmodern
Genre	experimental fiction
Notable works	Going Down, Springer's Progress, Wittgenstein's Mistress, Reader's Block, This Is Not A Novel, Vanishing Point, The Last Novel
Years active	1956 – 2007

David Merrill Markson (December 20, 1927 – c. June 4, 2010) was an American novelist. He was the author of several postmodern novels, including Springer's Progress, Wittgenstein's Mistress, and Reader's Block. His final book, The Last Novel, published in 2007, was called "a real tour de force" by The New York Times.

Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional and experimental approach to narrative, character development and plot. The late writer David Foster Wallace hailed Wittgenstein's Mistress as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country". While his early works draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, his later novels are, in Markson's words, "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."

In addition to his output of modernist and postmodernist experimental literature, he published a book of poetry, a critical study of Malcolm Lowry, three crime novels, and an anti-Western, The Ballard of Dingus Magee, later adapted into the film, Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra,

David Merrill Markson was born in Albany, New York, on December 20, 1927.

Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college instructor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.