Pynchon, Thomas (1937- )

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.

Born in Glen Cove, New York, Pynchon graduated from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in 1958.

After a collection of earlier written short stories Slow Learner (1984), he published his fourth novel, Vineland (1990), a reworking of earlier preoccupations.