2008 Woodie Awards
Saul Bellow: An Obituary
Professor Allison Smith
Issue date: 5/16/05 Section: Opinion
Nobel laureate Saul Bellow, a Jewish-American writer whose works focused on the predicament of the individual in the modern world, died on April 5th at his home in Brookline, Massachussetts. He was 89.
Bellow, widely considered to be one of the greatest American writers of the last half of the twentieth century was born in Canada, in Lachine, Quebec in 1915. The youngest child of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was one of four children and the only one to be born in North America. He lived in a Jewish section of Montreal until he was nine, when he and his family moved to Chicago, the city with which he was most associated and which much of his writing would focus on.
In 1933, Bellow began his academic career at the University of Chicago, transferring to Northwestern University and graduating in 1937, with a degree in anthropology and sociology. The influence of those fields is apparent in his work, often in-depth studies of individual characters and their efforts to find meaning in contemporary society.
After completing his undergraduate studies, Bellow began but did not complete graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. He went on to take part in the W.P.A. Federal Writers' Project in Chicago, writing biographies of novelists. Towards the end of the 1930s, he moved to New York, focusing on the writing of fiction, and during World War II, he joined the merchant marine.
After the war, Bellow began a career as a professor of English, teaching at New York University, Princeton, and for many years at the University of Chicago. In 1993, he left Chicago and accepted a teaching position at Boston University.
The Dangling Man, Bellow's first novel, was published in 1944 when he was thirty. It was followed in 1953 by The Adventures of Augie March, the work which established him as a literary force.
Among post-World War II American novelists, Bellow is known for convincingly illustrating urban spaces and urban men, often Jewish, and their searches for identity. His novels including Henderson the Rain King (1959), Herzog (1964), Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970), Humboldt's Gift (1975), The Dean's December (1982), and More Die of Heartbreak (1987), are filled with characters, whose lives are usually marked by unrest. One of the traits that famously characterizes his style is the marriage of idiomatic language with highbrow cultural references.
"Fiction is the higher form of autobiography," he said, and thinly veiled facts from his own life and those of his friends and acquaintances often pervade Bellow's fictional work. This can most recently be seen in his last novel, Ravelstein, which is informed by the life of his friend and author, Allan Bloom.
Bellow was the recipient of more honors than any other American writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt's Gift, was awarded a Presidential Medal, and was the first author to win the National Book Award three times, having been awarded the prize for The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and for Mr. Sammler's Planet. When Bellow received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, the citation read, "For the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work."
Saul Bellow is survived by his wife, a daughter, three sons, and six grandchildren.
Bellow, widely considered to be one of the greatest American writers of the last half of the twentieth century was born in Canada, in Lachine, Quebec in 1915. The youngest child of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was one of four children and the only one to be born in North America. He lived in a Jewish section of Montreal until he was nine, when he and his family moved to Chicago, the city with which he was most associated and which much of his writing would focus on.
In 1933, Bellow began his academic career at the University of Chicago, transferring to Northwestern University and graduating in 1937, with a degree in anthropology and sociology. The influence of those fields is apparent in his work, often in-depth studies of individual characters and their efforts to find meaning in contemporary society.
After completing his undergraduate studies, Bellow began but did not complete graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. He went on to take part in the W.P.A. Federal Writers' Project in Chicago, writing biographies of novelists. Towards the end of the 1930s, he moved to New York, focusing on the writing of fiction, and during World War II, he joined the merchant marine.
After the war, Bellow began a career as a professor of English, teaching at New York University, Princeton, and for many years at the University of Chicago. In 1993, he left Chicago and accepted a teaching position at Boston University.
The Dangling Man, Bellow's first novel, was published in 1944 when he was thirty. It was followed in 1953 by The Adventures of Augie March, the work which established him as a literary force.
Among post-World War II American novelists, Bellow is known for convincingly illustrating urban spaces and urban men, often Jewish, and their searches for identity. His novels including Henderson the Rain King (1959), Herzog (1964), Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970), Humboldt's Gift (1975), The Dean's December (1982), and More Die of Heartbreak (1987), are filled with characters, whose lives are usually marked by unrest. One of the traits that famously characterizes his style is the marriage of idiomatic language with highbrow cultural references.
"Fiction is the higher form of autobiography," he said, and thinly veiled facts from his own life and those of his friends and acquaintances often pervade Bellow's fictional work. This can most recently be seen in his last novel, Ravelstein, which is informed by the life of his friend and author, Allan Bloom.
Bellow was the recipient of more honors than any other American writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt's Gift, was awarded a Presidential Medal, and was the first author to win the National Book Award three times, having been awarded the prize for The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and for Mr. Sammler's Planet. When Bellow received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, the citation read, "For the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work."
Saul Bellow is survived by his wife, a daughter, three sons, and six grandchildren.