Saul Bellow
Solomon Bellows arrived in the world on the 10th of June 1915, within the quiet streets of Lachine, Quebec. His parents had fled Saint Petersburg, Russia, just two years prior to his birth. They brought with them a Lithuanian-Jewish heritage that would shape their son's entire worldview. The family included three elder siblings: Zelda, Moishe, and Schmuel. Their father worked as an onion importer while also taking jobs in bakeries and coal delivery. A respiratory infection at age eight forced young Solomon into bed for months. This period of illness taught him self-reliance and sparked a hunger for reading. He decided to become a writer after finishing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin during those long days alone. When he was nine, the family moved to Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood. There, his mother died when he was seventeen. She had wanted him to be a rabbi or a concert violinist. Instead, he rebelled against what he called suffocating orthodoxy and began writing at a very young age.
Bellow attended the University of Chicago before transferring to Northwestern University. He originally hoped to study literature but felt the English department was anti-Jewish. He graduated with honors in anthropology and sociology instead. These subjects later instilled his novels with unique perspectives. During the 1930s, he joined the Federal Writers' Project in Chicago. His colleagues included Richard Wright and Nelson Algren. Many writers there were radical or sympathetic to communism. Bellow identified as a Trotskyist and endured taunts from Stalinist-leaning members. In 1941, he became a naturalized United States citizen. He discovered he had immigrated illegally as a child while attempting to enlist in the armed forces. World War II found him serving in the merchant marine. While aboard ship, he completed his first novel, Dangling Man. Published in 1944, it followed a young Chicago man waiting to be drafted for war. From 1946 through 1948, he taught at the University of Minnesota. He moved into a large old house on Orlin Avenue SE during this period.
A Guggenheim Fellowship awarded in 1948 allowed Bellow to move to Paris. There he began writing The Adventures of Augie March. Critics noted its resemblance to Don Quixote, the great seventeenth-century Spanish classic. The book opens with one of American literature's most famous paragraphs. It follows its titular character through various careers and encounters. Augie lives by his wits and resolve throughout the narrative. Written in a colloquial yet philosophical style, the novel established Bellow's reputation. It appeared in print in 1953 and won the National Book Award for Fiction that same year. In 1958, Bellow returned to teach again at the University of Minnesota. During this time, he and his wife Sasha received psychoanalysis from Professor Paul Meehl. Earlier, in 1953, he had translated Isaac Bashevis Singer's Gimpel the Fool from Yiddish into English. These years marked his transition from academic observer to major literary voice. His work began to reflect the disorientation of contemporary society while offering hope for greatness.
Bellow hit the bestseller list in 1964 with his novel Herzog. He felt surprised by the commercial success of such a cerebral work about a troubled college professor. The protagonist writes letters to friends, scholars, and the dead without ever sending them. This exploration of mental instability continued in his 1975 novel Humboldt's Gift. He used his late friend Delmore Schwartz as the model for Von Humboldt Fleisher. Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science also served as a theme within that book. Propelled by these successes, Bellow won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1976. He delivered a seventy-minute address to an audience in Stockholm, Sweden. He called on writers to be beacons for civilization and awaken it from intellectual torpor. The following year, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture. His lecture was entitled The Writer and His Country Look Each Other Over. By this time, he had become one of the most celebrated authors alive.
After years living in New York City, Bellow returned to Chicago in 1962. He took a position at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He moved into the Hyde Park neighborhood with his third wife, Susan Glassman. He found Chicago vulgar but vital and more representative of America than New York. As he grew older, Bellow shifted toward cultural conservatism. He became identified with opponents of feminism, campus activism, and postmodernism. He thrust himself into contentious debates regarding African American-Jewish relations. According to Alfred Kazin, Bellow once asked who the Tolstoy of the Zulus might be. He later characterized such remarks as off the cuff and pedantic. Despite these comments, he stood by his criticism of multiculturalism. Attempts to name a street after him in Hyde Park were halted by alderman Toni Preckwinkle. Critics claimed his remarks about neighborhood inhabitants were racist. A one-block stretch of West Augusta Boulevard in Humboldt Park was named Saul Bellow Way instead. He supported U.S. English until ending his association with the group in 1988.
Bellow died on the 5th of April 2005, at age eighty-nine in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is buried at the Jewish cemetery Shir HeHarim of Brattleboro, Vermont. His early works earned him the reputation as a major novelist of the twentieth century. By his death, he was widely regarded as one of the greatest living novelists. He was the first writer to win three National Book Awards in all categories. Philip Roth described him alongside William Faulkner as providing the backbone of American literature. Martin Amis called him the greatest American author ever in his view. On the other hand, Vladimir Nabokov privately described Bellow as a miserable mediocrity. Kingsley Amis suggested crime writer John D. MacDonald was a better writer than Bellow. V. S. Pritchett praised Seize the Day as a small gray masterpiece. Ron Rosenbaum wrote that Ravelstein rose above Bellow's failings as an author. In 2024, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating him. The stamp features a portrait illustration by Joe Ciardiello and appeared in Chicago on February sixth.
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Common questions
When and where was Saul Bellow born?
Solomon Bellows arrived in the world on the 10th of June 1915, within the quiet streets of Lachine, Quebec. His parents had fled Saint Petersburg, Russia, just two years prior to his birth.
What university did Saul Bellow attend before graduating with honors?
Bellow attended the University of Chicago before transferring to Northwestern University. He graduated with honors in anthropology and sociology instead of literature.
Which novel won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953?
The Adventures of Augie March appeared in print in 1953 and won the National Book Award for Fiction that same year. Critics noted its resemblance to Don Quixote, the great seventeenth-century Spanish classic.
Why did Saul Bellow win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1976?
Propelled by successes including Herzog and Humboldt's Gift, Bellow won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1976. He delivered a seventy-minute address to an audience in Stockholm, Sweden calling on writers to be beacons for civilization.
Where is Saul Bellow buried after he died on the 5th of April 2005?
He is buried at the Jewish cemetery Shir HeHarim of Brattleboro, Vermont. Bellow died on the 5th of April 2005, at age eighty-nine in Brookline, Massachusetts.