The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Bellow, Saul
Bellow, Saul
(
1915
–
2005
),
novelist. He was born in Canada of Russian-Jewish parents, and educated from the age of 9 in Chicago, a city evoked in many of his works, including his first short novel Dangling Man (
1944
), a first-person account of a man waiting, unemployed, for his army draft. The Victim (
1947
) deals with the relationship between Jew and Gentile. The Adventures of Augie March (
1953
) opens in Chicago, ‘that sombre city’, and provides a lengthy, episodic, first-person account of Augie's progress from boyhood, moving to Mexico, then Paris. Seize the Day (
1956
), a novella, deals with middle-aged Wilhelm, still oppressed by his powerful father. Henderson the Rain King (
1959
), designed on a grand and mythic scale, records American millionaire Gene Henderson's quest for revelation and spiritual power in Africa, where he becomes rainmaker and heir to a kingdom....
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