Author Norman Mailer dies at 84

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer has died of renal failure aged 84, his literary executor has said.

Mailer won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Armies of the Night in 1968 and The Executioner's Song in 1979.

He was known for biting prose and as an antagonist of the feminist movement. His latest work, The Castle in the Forest, was published this year.

Last month he had surgery to remove scar tissue from around his lung.

Born in 1923 in New Jersey, Mailer wrote dozens of books as well as plays, poems, screenplays and essays.

His strident views on US political life, and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, provoked and enraged readers.