US author Thomas Pynchon agrees to go digital

Notoriously reclusive American writer Thomas Pynchon has for the first time agreed that his works can be published digitally, his publishers said Thursday.

"The release of Thomas Pynchon's backlist in the digital format is a publisher's dream," said Penguin Press president Ann Godoff in a statement.

"To be able to present at one time some of the most important fiction of the 20th and 21st centuries is very exciting and a great honor."

Pynchon, 75, has fiercely guarded his privacy and only one or two photographs exist of him. He never gives interviews.

His body of seven novels and a collection of short stories includes "V," "The Crying of Lot 49," "Mason and Dixon," "Gravity's Rainbow," "Slow Learner" and "Vineland." In 1974 he won the Pulitzer Prize.

Godoff told the New York Times that she believed Pynchon had finally agreed to go digital because "I think he wants to have more readers."

(c) 2012 AFP