Author Mailer recovers from surgery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, one of America's most renowned authors, is recovering in a New York City hospital after lung surgery, his editorial assistant said on Wednesday.

Dwayne Prickett said Mailer, 84, had surgery about a week ago and that his health was improving daily. "He is 84 so everyone is cautious," he added.

"He had some breathing problems and the doctors just felt it was necessary to go in and take care of some problems with a little bit of fluid build-up around his lungs," Prickett said.

Known for his biting prose, penchant for controversy and as an antagonist of the feminist movement, Mailer won Pulitzer Prizes in 1969 and 1980 for "The Armies of the Night" about Vietnam War protest and "The Executioner's Song" about the first person to be executed after the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment.

Born in 1923 in New Jersey, he has written dozens of books as well as plays, poems, screenplays and essays. He was co-founder of The Village Voice alternative newspaper in New York and once a candidate for New York city mayor.

His first major success, the 1948 novel "The Naked and the Dead," was a fictionalized account based on his experiences in the Army in World War Two.