https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barth (b 1930)
In 1967, he wrote a highly influential[16] and to some controversial[17] essay considered a manifesto of postmodernism, The Literature of Exhaustion (first printed in The Atlantic, 1967). It depicts literary realism as a "used-up" tradition; Barth's description of his own work, which many thought illustrated a core trait of postmodernism, is "novels which imitate the form of a novel, by an author who imitates the role of author".[18]
The essay was widely considered a statement of "the death of the novel",[citation needed] (compare with Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author"). Barth has since insisted that he was merely making clear that a particular stage in history was passing, and pointing to possible directions from there. He later (1980) wrote a follow-up essay, "The Literature of Replenishment", to clarify the point.
John Barth: An Introduction, by David Morrell, PSUP, 1976 (accessible via scribd)
now, this is so very much fucking interesting ...
In 1969, while David Morrell was writing First Blood, the novel in which Rambo was created, he also wrote his doctoral dissertation about acclaimed author, John Barth. In it, Morrell analyses Barth’s early fiction, using interviews with Barth, his agent, and his editors as well as several of Barth’s unpublished essays and letters to tell what Morrell calls “the story behind the stories, a biography of Barth’s fiction.” Over the years, scholars have found John Barth: An Introductioninvaluable for its lengthy biographical sections, which Barth himself approved. Fans of Morrell’s fiction will find this book enlightening in terms of what Barth taught him about writing. (amazon)
