Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow (June 10, 1915 – April 5, 2005), was an acclaimed Canadian-born American Jewish writer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and is best known for writing novels that investigate isolation, spiritual dissociation, and the possibilities of human awakening. While on a Guggenheim fellowship in Paris, he wrote most of his best-known novel, The Adventures of Augie March.

Career

Bellow has taught at the University of Minnesota, New York University, Princeton, the University of Chicago, Bard College and Boston University where he cotaught a class with James Wood ('modestly absenting himself' when it was time to discuss Seize the Day). In order to take up his appointment at Boston, Bellow relocated in 1993 from Chicago to Brookline, Massachusetts, where he died on April 5, 2005, at age 89. He is buried at the Jewish cemetery Shir he harim of Brattleboro, Vermont.

Related Topics:
University of Minnesota - New York University - Princeton - University of Chicago - Bard College - Boston University - James Wood - 1993 - Chicago - Brookline, Massachusetts - April 5 - 2005 - Brattleboro - Vermont

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Bellow began his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago but left after two years to complete his degree not in English, but in anthropology at Northwestern University. It has been suggested that the study of anthropology has had an interesting influence on his literary style.

Related Topics:
University of Chicago - Anthropology - Northwestern University

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Before Bellow started his career as a writer he wrote book reviews for ten dollars apiece. His early works earned him the reputation as one of the foremost novelists of the 20th century, and by his death he was regarded by many as the greatest living novelist in English. He was the first novelist to win the National Book Award three times. His friend and protege Philip Roth has said of him, "The backbone of 20th-century American literature has been provided by two novelists—William Faulkner and Saul Bellow. Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain of the 20th century."

Related Topics:
20th century - National Book Award - Philip Roth - William Faulkner - Melville - Hawthorne - Twain

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