orig. Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr.
born March 2, 1930, Richmond, Va., U.S.
U.S. journalist and novelist.
He earned a doctorate from Yale University and then wrote for newspapers and worked as a magazine editor, becoming known as a proponent of New Journalism, the application of fiction-writing techniques to journalism. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) chronicles the life of a traveling group of hippies. The Right Stuff (1979; film, 1983) examines the first U.S. astronaut program. Other controversial nonfiction books attacked fashionable 1960s leftism, modern abstract art, and international architectural styles. His novel The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987; film, 1990), a novel of urban greed and corruption, was a best-seller. Wolfe's second novel, A Man in Full , was published in 1998.