(born 1930) Barth was one of a group of influential American novelists and writers who became known in the 1960s for their turn to experimental fiction: his 1967 essay “The Literature of Exhaustion,” is often cited as a manifesto of sorts for American literary postmodernism. In novels such as The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), Chimera (1972) and The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991), Barth sought to infuse traditional narratives and prose styles with late modern or postmodern themes and philosophical concerns. Barth spent most of his adult life in the academy and is now a Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at the Johns Hopkins University Barth’s love of storytelling—the figure of Sheherazade is a favorite motif—arguably has made his work more accessible than many other postmodern American writers.