Leslie Aaron Fiedler (March 8, 1917 – January 29, 2003) was an American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction.

From it, there emerges Fiedler's once scandalous—now increasingly accepted—judgement that American literature is incapable of dealing with adult sexuality and is pathologically obsessed with death.

[2] Our great novelists, though experts on indignity and assault, on loneliness and terror, tend to avoid treating the passionate encounter of a man and a woman, which we expect at the center of a novel.

Indeed, they rather shy away from permitting in their fictions the presence of any full-fledged, mature women, giving us instead monsters of virtue or bitchery, symbols of the rejection or fear of sexuality.Fiedler was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish parents Lillian and Jacob Fiedler.

[citation needed] In April 1995, there was a celebration conference and performance in his honor called "Fiedlerfest" at the Center for the Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Several famous writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Camille Paglia and Ishmael Reed paid homage to him and his works.

They asked Fiedler to name the key speakers of the conference and he selected three people he admired: Camille Paglia, Allen Ginsberg, and Ishmael Reed.

The university funded the event, which also had the participation of a master Daejaeng player related to one of the Korean students in the English Department, who played in Fiedler's honor.