Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert Selby Jr. was an American novelist who wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964), Requiem for a Dream (1978), and The Room. Two of his books were adapted into films, and he appeared in both. With no formal training in writing, he used raw language to depict the bleak, violent world of his youth, and for more than 20 years he taught creative writing at the University of Southern California. He died in 2004.