Thompson, Hunter S(tockton) (1939–2005)

US writer and journalist. A proponent of the New Journalism school of reporting, which made the writer an essential component of the story, Thompson mythologized himself as the outrageous ‘Doctor Gonzo’ in his political journalism of the 1960s. An acute observer of the decadence and depravity in American life, he wrote such books as Hell's Angels (1966), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971; first published as a series of articles by Rolling Stone magazine, filmed 1998), and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973). His first novel, The Rum Diary, written in 1959, was not published until 1998.

He also wrote the collections Generation of Swine (1988), Songs of the Doomed (1990), The Great Shark Hunt (1991), Better Than Sex (1995), and The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (1998; published in 1997 as The Fear and Loathing Letters).