(1927-2010) US author of the stringently Modernist Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988), whose protagonist may be the last human (see Last Man) left on Earth; the novel is couched as an array of assertive, gnomic paragraphs in the style of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), and similarly dramatizes the gap (or perhaps aporia) between the world and the propositions that we fling in what we believe to be the direction of the world (see Metaphysics; Perception). Writers influenced by Markson include David Foster Wallace. [JC]

David Merrill Markson

born Albany, New York: 20 December 1927

died New York: 4 June 2010

works

• Wittgenstein's Mistress (Elmwood Park, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 1988) [hb/]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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