Gilbert Sorrentino (April 27, 1929 – May 18, 2006) was an American novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, professor, and editor.

His insistence on the primacy of language and his forays into metafiction mark him as a postmodernist, but he is also known for his ear for American speech and his attention to the particularities of place, especially of his native Brooklyn.

He grew up in the borough's Bay Ridge neighborhood and attended Brooklyn College before and after serving in the United States Army Medical Corps during the Korean War.

"[1] Sorrentino's students included the writers Ammiel Alcalay, Trey Ellis, Jeffrey Eugenides, Nicole Krauss, and Jenny Offill.

"[2] In 2010 a posthumous novel, The Abyss of Human Illusion, was published by Coffee House Press with a preface by Christopher Sorrentino.