Norman Mailers flirtations, friendships and feuds made public

The personal archive of Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Norman Mailer has been made public, revealing his flirtations, friendships and feuds during his lifetime.

London, Jan 6 : The personal archive of Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Norman Mailer has been made public, revealing his flirtations, friendships and feuds during his lifetime.

On Jan 3, Mailer's archive, which contains more than 1,000 boxes of manuscripts, letters, magazines, drawings, photographs and more, was opened to the public at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre at the University of Texas, reports Times Online.

The records contains letters to and from about 3,500 names including Madonna, Bill Clinton, Lord Bragg and Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy.

In one of the letters, pop icon Madonna has thanked Mailer for not misquoting her in a journalistic profile.

"Thank you for being so brave," she wrote in 1994, cheerily signing off "Love Madonna".

Mailer replied honey-toned: "You deserve every good thing I said about you . . . Cheers, amities, Norman."

In his correspondence with Hefner, Mailer recalled good times at the Playboy mansion in Chicago, writing in 1962 with relish that it was "as exciting as hell".

Hefner says euphemistically: "I hope you enjoyed yourself, I think you must have because you kept the party going all week."

Also, there are about 40,000 letters to and from family, other writers and notable personalities, including Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Muhammad Ali and John Lennon.

ANI