Mason Hoffenberg was an American writer, born in December 1922, in New York City, to a wealthy Jewish family headed by patriarch Isidore Hoffenberg, a successful, self-made businessman. He was drafted in 1944 and became a member of the U.S. Army Air Force, attending Olivet College at the time.
Hoffenberg was stationed in England and later in Belgium, France, and Germany as part of the post-war Allied occupation army. After his military service, he returned to New York and studied on the G.I. Bill, also continuing to return to Paris, where he used his benefits to study at The Sorbonne.
In New York, he lived in Greenwich Village during the rise of the beatniks and shared an apartment with the African American novelist James Baldwin. He became part of the Village literary scene of the 1950s, where he knew Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
In Paris, he married a Frenchwoman in 1953, with whom he had children. Working for Agence France Presse, he became friends with other American expatriates, including Kerouac and Ginsberg's close friend William S. Burroughs.
Hoffenberg was one of the writers who wrote "dirty books" for the Olympia Press, which brought him into collaboration with Terry Southern, resulting in the best-selling novel "Candy" when it was published in the U.S. in the 1960s. Despite this success, Hoffenberg never had another writing success after "Candy", unlike Southern, who became famous.
He struggled with addiction, becoming a heroin addict and later kicking the habit with the help of methadone. Eventually, he became an alcoholic. Mason Hoffenberg died of cancer on June 1, 1986, in New York City, at the age of 63.
