- guardian.co.uk,
- Tuesday July 22 2008 15:39 BST
1915-2005
"Vividness is what novelists must desire most and so they must value human existence or be unfaithful to their calling."
Birthplace
Quebec, Canada
Education
Northwestern and Chicago Universities (anthropology): "I felt that wisdom and culture were immense and that I was hopelessly small.
Other jobs
Worked for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and as a teacher, including creative writing at Princeton.
Did you know?
He felt moved to drop the 's' from his original slightly comic surname, Bellows.
Critical verdict
The grand old man of American letters since he was made a Nobel Laureate in 1976 "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work", his recent novella, The Actual, was fairly slight but respectfully received; Ravelstein, a memento mori to dead friend, is suffused with mortal dread and fine comedy.
Recommended works
Henderson the Rain King; Herzog; Humboldt's Gift
Influences
He has always felt an affinity with the divided history of Joseph Conrad.
Now read on
Harold Brodkey, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Herbert Gold, Leslie Fiedler, Grace Paley
Adaptations
Seize The Day (1986) featured a put-upon Robin Williams - and Bellow himself as 'man in hallway'. He has also appeared in the 1980 Amos Gitais talkie, In Search of Identity, and played himself in Woody Allen's Zelig (1983).
Recommended biography
Handsome Is: Adventures With Saul Bellow by Harriet Wasserman is an ex-literary agent's revenge (Bellow fired her in favour of Andrew 'the Jackal' Wylie) setting out to reveal the male chauvinist pig behind the great man, while James Atlas?s long-awaited life split the critics utterly - it seems one can't be objective about the king of subjectivity.
Useful links and work online
Work online
· Bellow's 1952 review of Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man
Background
· Nobel Prize presentation speech and other resources on Nobel site
· The Saul Bellow Society
