Saul Bellow
Awards: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction,1976
and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976
Born: 10/06/1915 in Lachin, Qubec, Canada.
Died: 05/04/2005 at Brookline, USA
Language: English
Saul Bellow was a Jew and his parents had emigrated
from St. Petersburg, Russia two year prior to his birth, His mother was
deeply religious but the young man found the orthodox upbringing very
suffocating. The family moved to Humboldt's Park in the neighborhood
of Chicago when Saul was nine years old. The place provided the
fodder for many of his works. Saul Bellow lost his mother when he was
only 17.
After finishing school, Saul Bellow wanted
to study literature but the ambience was anti-Jewish and hence he
switched to Anthropology and Sociology. From early ages, Bellow wanted
to become a writer after reading Uncle Tom's Cabin by Stowe and
William Shakespeare. Depicicting his passion for reading, his close
friend John Podhoretz said " Bellow inhaled
books and ideas the way rest of us breathe air." Bellow
joined the war as a merchant marine when Second World War broke out.
He started his novel Dangling Man during this period
which describes the journey and emotions of a young man about to be
drafted to war.
Bellow taught well past his old age in
Princeton University, Yale University, University of Chicago and
immensely enjoyed teaching.
Major Influence: Great Russian Novelists.
Major Works: Dangling Man(1944), The
Victim(1947),The Adventure of Augie March(1953), Seize
the Day(1956), Herzog(1964), Humboldt's Gift(1975),
A Theft(1989), Ravelstein(2000), Collected Stories(2001).
Humboldt's Gift brough Saul Bellow the coveted Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction and also had a seminal role in fetching the Nobel. The book,
Adventure of Augie March got him National Book Award. Bellow
had a huge influence on the younger generation of writers.
Order Saul Bellow's Books below
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