Hunter S. Thompson

Author details

Born:
July 18, 1937
Died:
Feb. 20, 2005

External links

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative. Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del …

Books by Hunter S. Thompson