Mark Harris

Mark Harris (1922–2007) was an American novelist, literary biographer, and educator best known for his baseball novels featuring the character Henry Wiggen, especially Bang the Drum Slowly (1956), which was adapted into a television production starring Paul Newman and a major motion picture starring Robert De Niro. After early careers in journalism and U.S. Army service during World War II, he earned a PhD in American Studies and taught English at universities including San Francisco State and Arizona State until 2001, producing critically acclaimed works like The Southpaw (1953), Wake Up, Stupid (1959), and biographies of Vachel Lindsay and Saul Bellow. While no major literary awards are prominently noted, his novels received widespread critical acclaim.