Malamud, Bernard
Malamud, Bernard (1914–86),American writer, known for his novels and tales based on Jewish social and cultural experience. Malamud made his reputation with the novel The Assistant (1957), which uses the legend of St Francis of Assisi to address questions of anti‐Semitism and Jewish identity in New York during the 1930s. In two superb collections of stories, The Magic Barrel (1958) and Idiots First (1963), he draws upon eastern European folklore, Franz Kafka, and New York Jewish humour to create unique kinds of stories and modern fairy tales. Thus, in ‘The Jewbird’, a talking bird named Schwartz flies into the kitchen of the Cohen family to escape anti‐Semeets (anti‐Semites) but ironically meets his end in the hands of the Jewish salesman Cohen.
Jack Zipes
[The entire page is 140 words long]
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