Author
Saul Bellow
Birth Date
June 10, 1915
(89 Years)
Death Date
April 5, 2005
Associated Country
United States
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) was a Canadian-born American writer widely regarded as one of the most important novelists of the 20th century. He was born in Lachine, Quebec and grew up in Chicago, Illinois, a setting that would strongly influence much of his fiction. His work often explores intellectual life, identity, and the struggles of individuals searching for meaning in the modern world, frequently drawing on his Jewish heritage and urban experience.
Bellow achieved major recognition with novels such as The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1964), and Henderson the Rain King (1959). His writing is known for its rich language, philosophical depth, and memorable, introspective characters. Over his career, he received numerous honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award (which he won multiple times), and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.
Throughout his life, Bellow also worked as a professor, notably at the University of Chicago. He remains a central figure in American literature, celebrated for combining intellectual inquiry with vivid storytelling and for shaping the modern literary voice in the United States.
Bellow achieved major recognition with novels such as The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1964), and Henderson the Rain King (1959). His writing is known for its rich language, philosophical depth, and memorable, introspective characters. Over his career, he received numerous honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award (which he won multiple times), and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.
Throughout his life, Bellow also worked as a professor, notably at the University of Chicago. He remains a central figure in American literature, celebrated for combining intellectual inquiry with vivid storytelling and for shaping the modern literary voice in the United States.
Books
One of the supreme fiction writers of the twentieth century, Nobel laureate Saul Bellow was also deeply insightful in his lesser-known roles as essayist, critic, and lecturer. Gathered together in...
While Saul Bellow is known best for his longer fiction in award-winning novels such as The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog, Something to Remember Me By will draw new readers to Bellow as it...
Henderson the Rain King is a philosophical and often humorous novel that follows Eugene Henderson, a wealthy but deeply dissatisfied American. Despite his material success, Henderson is plagued by a...
Herzog 2011
Is Moses Herzog losing his mind? His formidable wife Madeleine has left him for his best friend, and Herzog is left alone with his whirling thoughts - yet he still sees himself as a survivor, raging...
Seize the Day 2011
Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: he is separated from...
The Victim 2010
In this unique noir masterpiece by the incomparable Saul Bellow, a young man is sucked into the mysterious, heat-filled vortex of New York City. Asa Leventhal, a temporary bachelor with his wife away...
Humboldt's Gift 2008
Charlie Citrine, a successful writer and intellectual, reflects on his life in the shadow of his former mentor, the brilliant but troubled poet Von Humboldt Fleisher. Once celebrated, Humboldt has...
Augie, the exuberant narrator-hero, is a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Deptression. A “born recruit,” Augie makes himself available for a series of occupations, then proudly rejects...
Dangling Man 2006
Expecting to be inducted into the army to fight in World War II, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction,...
Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die of Heartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn...
Mr. Sammler's Planet 2004
Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a “registrar of madness,” a refined and civilized being caught among...
Collected Stories 2002
Nobel Prize-winner Saul Bellow has deservedly been celebrated as one of America's greatest living writers. For more than sixty years he has stretched our minds, our imaginations, and our hearts with...
Ravelstein 2001
Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously-and...
A powerful, stimulating testament, To Jerusalem and Back is a rigorous attempt to come to grips with Israel’s history and future. Immersing himself in the landscape and culture of this “small state in...
In six darkly comic tales, Saul Bellow presents the human experience in all its preposterousness, poignancy, and pathos. In the title story, a professor well-known for his wit struggles to animate his...
It All Adds Up 1995
Saul Bellow's fiction, honored by a Nobel Prize and a Pulitzer, among other awards, has made him a literary giant. Now the man himself and a lifetime of his insightful views on a range of topics...