【英语文学作业】作家索尔贝娄简介.ppt

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow Saul Bellow, born Solomon Bellows（1915.7-20054.5）,was an acclaimed American writer of Russian-Jewish origin. His early works earned him the reputation as one of the foremost novelists of the 20thcentury, and by his death he was regarded by some as the greatest living novelist in English. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and the National Medal of Arts in 1988. Also, he was the first novelist to win the National Book Award three times. He was born in Lachine, Quebec. When Bellow was nine, the family moved to the slums of Chicago. Bellow attended the University of Chicago, but later transferred to Northwestern Uniersity. In Chicago, he took part in anthroposophical and sociology studies, because he felt literature that he originally wanted to study was in charge of the English department which to be anti-Jewish. In 1941 Bellow became a naturalized US citizen. During World War Two, Bellow joined the merchant marine and during his service he completed his first novel, Dangling Man about a young Chicago man waiting to be drafted for the war. Bellow hit the bestseller list in 1964 with his novel Herzog. This cerebral novel is about a middle-aged and troubled college professor who writes letters to friends, scholars and the dead, but never sends them. Bellow returned to his exploration of mental instability, and its relationship to genius, in his 1975 novel Humboldt’s Gift. Bellow used his late friend and rival, the brilliant but self-destructive poet Delmore Schwartz, as his model for the novels title character, Von Humboldt Fleisher. Propelled by the success of Humboldts Gift, Bellow won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1976. Bellow was married five times, with all but his last marriage ending in divorce. In 1999, when he was 84, Bellow had a daughter, his fourth child, with Freedman. Themes and style The authors works speak to the disorienting nature of modern civilization, and the countervailing abili