Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert "Cubby" Selby Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was an American novelist. Two of his books, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) and Requiem for a Dream (1978), were adapted into films, both of which he appeared in.

With no formal writing training, Selby used a raw language to depict the bleak and violent world that encompassed his youth, which would go on to set the stage for his early life. His first novel was prosecuted for obscenity in the United Kingdom and banned in Italy, which prompted defenses from many leading authors such as Anthony Burgess. He has influenced multiple generations of writers. For more than 20 years, he taught creative writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he lived full-time after 1983.