Biographical Sources

• Allen, Brooke. "The Adventures of Saul Bellow." Hudson Review 54.1 (2001): 77–87.
  

  Describes Bellow as magisterially arrogant with his ill-concealed rage and pride. Presents details concerning Bellow's life, personality, and Jewishness. Provides many anecdotes about Bellow's life.

• Anderson, David D. "Saul Bellow and the Midwestern Tradition: Beginnings." Midwestern Miscellany 16 (1988): 59–68.
  

  Provides an extensively researched biographical portrait of the early Saul Bellow and his Chicago neighborhood. Covers his childhood illness, high school, the political machine in Chicago, gangland stories of the day, the literary din, Bellow's intellectual activities, and information about his family. A detailed and important account.

• Anderson, Jon. "Homage to Saul Bellow." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 11–13.
  

  Describes four separate meetings with Bellow in Chicago, parties, events in bars, Russian Baths on Division Street, an interview at Bellow's apartment, a party at Lake Point Tower, and another at the Goodman Theater.

• Asher, Aaron. "An Awed Bystander." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 10.
  

  Describes his relationship with Bellow as his editor. Describes the heavily ammended manuscript, the Palmer penmanship and "splendidly intelligent" hand. Details himself as an awed and privileged bystander.

• Atlas, James. "The Shadow in the Garden." New Yorker 3 July 1995: 74–80, 82–85.
  

  Contains Atlas' account of Saul Bellow in 1987 and in 1988 for permission to write his biography, their initial interviews, Bellow's reluctance to authorize an autobiography, and their several subsequent interviews. Also describes Bellow's tour of Chicago sites with him, interviews in Bellow's new Boston apartment, and their most recent meeting subsequent to Bellow's illness.

• Atlas, James. "Starting Out in Chicago." Granta 41 (1992): 37–68.
  

  Provides a detailed interpretive biographical commentary around the previously published autobiographical piece "Starting Out in Interviews Chicago," which Bellow originally delivered as a Brandeis Commencement Address in 1974. Describes Bellow's early life as a struggling young writer in Chicago. Reports Bellow's life through anecdote, published pieces, manuscript collections and correspondence from the period preceding the writing of DM to the publication of TV, as well as his switch from Vanguard to Viking. A major biographical essay.

• Atlas, James. "Unsentimental Education." Atlantic June 1983: 78, 84, 87–92.
  

  Provides an account of considering and rejecting the idea of doing a biography on Delmore Schwartz, his conversations with Alfred Kazin, and his meeting with Saul Bellow to discuss the friendship between the two men.

• Atlas, James. "The Uses of Misery." New Yorker 24–31 Aug. 1998: 96–102, 104–09.
  

  A major essay linking the biographical elements of Bellow's life with the actual novels. Asserts that even by the standards of a confessional age, Bellow sticks close to the facts in his works; that one can reliably trace his career by reading each of his novels in sequence.

• Basic, Sonja. "Portret pisca: Saul Bellow" [The Author's Portrait: Saul Bellow]. Knjizevna Smotra [Zagreb, Yug.] 1.4 (1970): 68–73. Cited in Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, 1970.
  
  
• Bickelhaupt, Susan, and Maureen Dezell. "Bellow Fronts Literary Magazine." Boston Globe 3 May 1997, city ed.: C2.
  

  Contains an announcement concerning the launching of The Republic of Letters by Saul Bellow and Keith Botsford.

• Bickelhaupt, Susan, and Maureen Dezell. "Special Kay: Names and Faces." Boston Globe 26 Apr. 1997, city ed.: C2.
  
  
• Blades, John. "Bellow's Latest Chapter: One Year After Leaving Chicago, The Novelist Reflects on His New Life." Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine 19 June 1994: 8–14.
  

  Discusses Bellow's reasons for leaving Chicago: Boston's European flavor, its proximity to Vermont, its good TV reception, and its resemblance to the Montreal of his childhood. Reports on his grand new Boston apartment, his reactions to the harsh snowbound winter and sleet spring, and his enjoyment of the splendid view of the Charles river. Reports Bellow's comments that he was unable to walk around Chicago remembering all who had died, his disappointment that the Hyde Park liberals refused to deal with reality, and the failure of the U of Chicago to give him a secretary. Notes also that the appearance of IAAU only a few months after Bellow's move from Chicago is interesting since it offers his most explicitly nostalgic and sentimental view of Chicago. Describes the general contents of the book and then observes that Bellow is continually drawn back to Chicago. Describes Janis Bellow's appearance during the interview, her gracious attentiveness to her husband and guest, and some of her own feelings about the move. Concludes with a description of Bellow's current classroom activities, his reception at Boston University, and the slow progress of his 11th novel-in-progress which he is currently writing.

• Behrens, David. "Past, Present, Future of Saul Bellow." Newsday 24 Mar. 1994, Nassau and Suffolk ed.: B3.
  

  Reports that Bellow has just inaugurated a new lecture series at Adelphi University on "The pleasures of literature." Describes Bellow's manner, appearance, recollections of his youth, and his involvement with books as that form which allows the contemplation of vast possibilities in life. Reports Bellow's lament that high culture and the literary public continue to fade, and goes on to record comments from others concerning how little Bellow is being read now compared to twenty years ago.

• Blades, John. "Bellow's Bonanza." Chicago Tribune 1 May 1989: sec. 5: 2.
  

  A brief review of AT which discusses the politics of its publication as a paperback, as well as its other publishing history.

• Blades, John. "Bellow Leaving Chicago in Body but Not in Spirit." Chicago Tribune 25 May 1993: 2: 1,7.
  

  Contains comments by Bellow concerning his decision to leave Chicago, and several other insights in what appears to have been a telephone interview.

• Boroff, David. "Saul Bellow." Saturday Review 19 Sept. 1964: 38 39, 77.
  
  
• Brucker, Carl. "Saul Bellow." The Nobel Prize Winners: Literature. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Pasadena: Salem, 1987. 884–95.
  

  A very brief, general compilation of most known biographical information about Bellow, including the reception and awards given to individual novels.

• Chambers, Andrea. "At 73, Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow Decides He Wants to Be a Paperback Writer." People Weekly 27 Mar. 1989: 65–66, 69.
  

  Provides a brief description of the interior of Bellow's apartment and a few conversational remarks by Bellow on his historywith publishers. Contains a very recent photograph of Bellow. Also contains many new remarks by Bellow about writing and readership.

• Clemons, Walter, and Chris J. Harper. "Bellow the Word King." Newsweek I Nov. 1976: 89.
  
  
• Clemons, Walter. "Bellow: 'The Quest Never Stops.'" Newsweek 8 June 1987: 79.
  

  Comments that, like his characters, Bellow is a dazzling talker. Notes his penchant in all the novels for arousing feminist anger. Reports his comments in an interview that career women have no better notion than that of men informing their desire for success.

• Daigh, Ralph. "A Writer and a Scholar, Saul Bellow." Maybe You Should Write a Book. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1977. 103–04.
  
  
• Daniels, Shouri. "The Lie That Tells the Truth." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 6–8.
  

  Recounts some of Bellow's very early childhood memories, his comments at a dinner she held for him, his sense of humor and her subsequent encounters with him.

• Dworkin, Susan. "The 'Great Man' Syndrome: Saul Bellow and Me." Ms Mar. 1977: 72–73.
  

  Provides a personal portrait of Bellow from her perspective as a participant in a writers conference taught by Bellow.

• Emery, Jane. "Saul Bellow as Professor." Carrell Journal of the Friends of the University of Miami 27 (1989): 1–12.
  

  Contains a summary of Bellow's stronger media and interview appearances. Spends the bulk of the article reporting such anecdotes from the self-professed position of "Bellow-watcher." Describes her experiences in Bellow's graduate seminar at the University of Chicago. Contains detailed information on the history of The Committee for Social Thought, and of her own experience interviewing with Bellow for candidacy in that program.

• Epstein, Joseph. "Saul Bellow of Chicago." New York Times Book Review 9 May 1971: 4, 12, 14, 16.
  

  A brief overview of Bellow's life and work with useful biographical insights.

• Ferris William R. "About Saul Bellow." Humanities Nov./Dec. 2000: 6–16.
  
  
• Fuchs, Daniel. "Saul Bellow: A Literary Reminiscence." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 14–16.
  

  Describes his friendship with Bellow at the University of Chicago in the mid sixties. Describes Bellow's conversations, jokes, literary predilictions, and lectures.

• Grodzensky, Shlomo. "Firm in the Void." Jewish Frontier Mar. 1977: 20–22.
  
  
• Gussow, Mel. "For Saul Bellow, Seeing the Earth with Fresh Eyes." New York Times 26 May 1997, late ed., sec. 1: 13–14.
  

  A general tribute containing numerous quotes by Saul Bellow, a description of TA, and an overview of his last decades' work and opinions.

• Hammer, Joshua. "Saul Bellow Returns to Canada Searching for Phantoms That Shaped His Life and Art." People 25 June 1984:114.
  
  
• Harmon, Justin et. al. "Bellow, Saul." American Cultural Leaders from Colonial Times to the Present. Ed. Amy Lewis and Paula McGuire. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1993. 44–46.
  

  A brief biographical sketch listing each of the major works. Contains some biographical information.

• Harris, Mark. "Of Cars, Woodchucks and Being Bellow's Boswell." New York Times Book Review 4 Nov. 1984: 3, 41.
  
  
• Harris, Mark. "Saul Bellow at Purdue." Georgia Review 32.4 (1978): 715–54. An abridged excerpt from his A Drummlin Woodchuck.
  

  A detailed account of Harris' efforts to interview Bellow and gain his permission to do an official biography. Principally focuses on their meeting at Purdue.

• Heer, Jeet. "The Literary Life: Saul Bellow and the Schmoes." Literary Review of Canada 5.6 (1996): 23.
  
  
• Homel, David. "Home Again." Books in Canada Aug. / Sept. 1987: 34.
  

  Contains details of Bellow's connection to Lachine, Montreal, his recent appearance and talk there. Contains some new first-hand material about Bellow's childhood told in his own voice.

• Iannone, Carol. "The Political-Literary Complex." Commentary June 1986: 64–67.
  

  Describes the deliberations and festivities of the 48th International PEN Congress. Describes Bellow's contribution to the panel entitled "Alienation and the State."

• Josipovici, Gabriel. "Saul Bellow at Eighty." Salmagundi 10–07 (1995): 54.
  

  A very brief tribute to Bellow and a commentary on the profound impact H had on him.

• Kazin, Alfred. "My Friend Saul Bellow." Atlantic Jan. 1965: 51–54. Rpt. in Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 26–33.
  

  A brief biographical overview and tribute to Bellow. Contains very useful biographical information on their friendship.

• Klinkowitz, Jerome. "Words of Humor." Wilson Quarterly 2.1 (1978): 126–42.
  

  Describes a potentially abortive event at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb where Bellow was booked for a reading. Discusses his reading, control of the audience, and general command of comedy as he read from HRK.

• Kulshrestha, Chirantan. "The Estate." Miscellany Jan.–Feb. 1977: 17–29.
  

  A lengthy biographical account of meeting a tour guide at Stratford-on-Avon who claimed to be the real-life Herzog since Herzog's life so completely described his own. Provides an account of reading Bellow, identifying with him as a Hindu, and meditates on Bellow's various philosophical positions, including his Socratic methods and metaphysical ponderings.

• Lamont, Rosette C. "Bellow Observed: A Serial Portrait." Mosaic 8.1 (1974): 247–57. Rpt. in Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 34–48.
  

  Sums up Bellow's intellectual journey from DM to the present. Provides a detailed and lengthy account of her meeting with Bellow in May of 1960. Also describes his starting to write H and subsequent meetings with him in various places. Provides interpretive commentary on his fiction along the way.

• "Laureate for Saul Bellow." Time 1 Nov. 1976: 91.
  
  
• Marin, Daniel B. "Saul Bellow." American Novelists Since World War II. Detroit: Gale, 1978. 39–50. Vol. 2 of Dictionary of Literary Biography. 45 vols. to date. 1978.
  
  
• Martin, Sandra. "The Full Bellow Treatment." Globe and Mail 29 Apr. 2000: D16–D17.
  
  
• Materassi, Mario. "Bellow su Mozart." Ponte 48.2 (1992): 152–53.
  

  An editoral regarding Bellow's participation in the 200th anniversary of Mozart held in Florence at the Teatro-Comunale, 5 December 1991.

• Miller, Ruth. Saul Bellow: A Biography of the Imagination. New York: St. Martin's, 1991.
  
  
• Montgomery, M. R. "Bellow on Boston? Don't Ask."Boston Globe 23 Apr. 1996: 53.
  
  
• "Nobel Laureate Bellow to Join BU Faculty." Boston Globe 19 May 1993: Metro/Region: 18.
  

  Announces Bellow's joining the faculty at Boston University, and provides some details of the appointment.

• Norman, Geoffrey. "Taste: Dad for a Day–Well, More Than a Day. But Not Much More." Wall Street Journal 18 Feb. 2000, eastern ed., sec. Weekend Journal: W17.
  
  
• "Novelist Bellow, 84, Has Baby Girl." Associated Press Online. 12 Jan. 2000. Newspaper Source on Ebsco Academic Elite. 2 Aug. 2001.
  
  
• O'Sheel, Patrick. "Laughter from the Styx." Eco-logos 23 (1977): 11-14.
  
  
• Pop-Cornis, Marcel. "Premiul Nobel Pentru Literatura 1976: Saul Bellow" [Nobel Prize for Literature 1976: Saul Bellow]." Orizont [Romania]. 27.47 (1976): 8. Cited in Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, 1977.
  
  
• Ramras-Rauch, Gila. "The Nobel Prize: The Jewish/Hebraic Aspect." World Literature Today 62.2 (1988): 228-31.
  

  In this general article on the Jewish/Hebraic aspect of some Nobel Prize winners, the author describes Bellow's command of Hebrew and Yiddish. Recounts a little-known anecdote from Bellow's meeting with Martin Buber in 1959 in Israel. Comments generally on Bellow's commitment to Jewish history.

• Roosevelt, Karyl. "Saul Bellow." People Weekly 8 Sept. 1975: 60–63.
  
  
• Rule, Philip C. "Saul Bellow: Teller of Tales." America 13 Nov. 1976: 319–20.
  
  
• "Saul Bellow." Georgia Review 49.1 (1995): 75–78.
  

  A brief synopsis of Bellow's life, including major publication dates and a bibliography of his principal works.

• "Saul Bellow Wins Tulsa Library Trust's Author Award for 1989." Library Journal 15 Oct 1989: 19.
  
  
• "Saul Bellow: Yet Another Nobel for Viking." Publishers Weekly I Nov. 1976: 22.
  
  
• Semple, Robert H., Jr. "Bellow Wins Nobel Literature Prize." New York Times 22 Oct. 1976: A1, A10.
  
  
• Silva, Ribeiro da. "Samuel [sic.] Bellow: Nobel da Literatura." Broteria 103 (1976): 435–44.
  
  
• Spivey, Ted R. "In Search of Saul Bellow." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 17–23.
  

  Ascribes to Bellow the ability to be a representative figure who went on ahead absorbing the chaos of cultural collapse and yet surviving with his humanity intact. Describes his various encounters with Bellow's books and ideas, several of the interviews, and the many characteristics that make him Emerson's representative man.

• Sprunsinski, Michal. "Nobel 76: Bellow, czyli 'Tajemnica Trwa Wiecznie.'" [Bellow and the Secret of Eternity]. Literatura [Warsaw] 4 Nov. 1976: 16.
  
  
• Steinberg, Saul. "Saul Bellow in Uganda." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 24–25.
  

  Briefly describes meeting Bellow at the Murahison Falls in Uganda the night a hippos invaded the kitchen below the sleeping writer.

• Stern, Richard. "Bellow's Gift." New York Times Magazine 21 Nov. 1976: 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52.
  

  Provides a personal portrait of Bellow and an overviw of his work.

• Stern, Richard. "A Friendship of Thirty Years." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 4–5.
  

  Recounts his first meeting with Richard Stern in 1957 and subsequent meetings with Bellow at Northwestern, Skoki, and the New York State country estate.

• Stoffman, Judy. "Novel Novelist Honored." Toronto Star 24 Nov. 1993: D4.
  
  
• Storch, Charles. "Bellow's Defection No Match for Affection from Hometown." Chicago Tribune 9 Nov. 1993: 2: 1,6.
  

  Provides news coverage of Bellow's move from Chicago to Boston, along with comments from various people about why he made the move. Discusses the attempt of Mayor Daley to hold a civic celebration in honor of Bellow's 75th birthday, and the difficulties experienced by sculptor, Miller, who was commissioned to do a bust of Bellow.

• Streitfeld, David. "A Jolly Good Bellow." Washington Post 12 June 1997, final ed.: B1.
  

  Describes the acquisition of Bellow's portrait by the National Gallery and calls it premature. Describes "Mellow Bellow" of the post-Chicago years.

• Strobos, Semon. "Saul Bellow as Professor." Saul Bellow Journal 6.1 (1987): 3–8.
  

  An anecdotal account of Strobos's experience with Bellow as teacher in a class on Defoe and Richardson at the University of Chicago. Contains frequent direct quotations from Bellow. Delightfully told.

• Toynbee, Philip. "To Be a Good Man." Observer 24 Oct. 1976: 13.
  

  Provides a brief profile of Bellow on the eve of his Nobel prize acceptance.

• Tureck, Rosalyn. "Looking Backward." Saul Bellow Journal 4.2 (1985): 9.
  

  A brief account of being Bellow's classmate of Tuley High School, and meeting him years later at a cocktail party in New York.

• Venkateswarlu, D. "Conversations with Bellow: A Personal View." Jewish–American Writers and Intellectual Life in America. Series in American Literature. New Delhi: Prestige, 1993. 174–80.
  

  Argues that Bellow's political positions, his angles of vision on contemporary American reality inevitably guide his perceptions of a given cultural domain. To get at the genesis of Bellow's critique of the generation of the sixties, one has to restructure some of the possible perceptions out of which such meditations as those in MSP take root. Outlines events taking place in 1960 popular culture and Mr. Sammler's contrasting sobriety. States that the narrative becomes confusing when the perceptions of the New Left are piled together with the other insanities of the sixties, mostly the inherited horror and the legacy of the Holocaust. Asks what happens when these New Left views of Bellow are contextualized along with commonly agreed responses to the American Scene and the recent massacres in the gas chambers. Argues that Bellow's sixties critique of radical youth gets submerged in the over-all critique of Western decadence. Concludes that novels like MSP perpetuate and legitimate misconceptions in the guise of predictable, generalized artistic arguments.

• Warren, James. Writer's Blocks: Saul Bellow's Early Obstacles Ranged from Slim-to-None Sales to World War II." Chicago Tribune 14 Jan. 1993: 5: 2.
  

  A very brief account of Bellow's early attempts to get published.

• Weinstein, Ann. "Bellow's Reflections on His Most Recent Sentimental Journey to His Birthplace." Saul Bellow Journal 4.1 (1985): 62–71.
  
  
• Wolf, Arnold Jacob. "Saul Bellow, Jew." Judaism 50.2 (2001): 241–46.
  
  

• Austin, Michael. “Saul Bellow 1915–.” American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies: Retrospective Supplement II: James Baldwin to Nathanael West. Ed. Jay Parini. New York: Scribner’s, 2003. 19–36. 

  
  

  A tribute to Saul Bellow. Notes his long, distinguished career, loose plots, digressive structures, stylistic flair, metaphysical humor, and guarded optimism. Reviews Bellow’s life and includes a novel-by-novella description of Bellow’s works, themes, characters, politics, and personal life. Concludes that it is his themes of memory, friendship, and searching for spiritual meaning that distinguish his work.

• Atlas, James. “Part Wise Man, Part Wise Guy.” Time 15 Apr. 2005: 1. 

  
  

  Claims for six decades Bellow went at things freestyle. Says Bellow taught that literature could be fabricated out of the biography of a place and the map of his own consciousness as it evolves against the backdrop of the bleak industrial city, with its stockyards and sooty, cast-iron buildings. Discusses driving around Chicago with Bellow and seeing his Chicago through Bellow’s eyes. Concludes that Bellow saw his job to observe the world around him and make us see its beauty. 

•  Birkerts, Sven. “As Above: Saul Bellow.” AGNI 62 (2005): 1–9. 

  
  

  Writes of the void at Boston University after Bellow’s death. Calls Bellow a traveler and a brilliant, reflective scene maker who knew how to use the physical displacement of his characters as a form of existential drama. Comments on Bellow’s psycho-phenomenology or travel-psychosis, underneath which is a subthreshold agitation about the basic business of living. Comments on Bellow’s perpetual perplexity at the imponderable murky bogs of our being and the illegible signs surrounding us on every side. Describes his rough nap of the real, its fugue of the walking mind, the eyes quirky, meandering, the violence of the rush of feeling, epiphany, the realization of faith and of beauty coming together. Concludes that his soul was always alive with unquenched delight in the whole chaos of the human. 

• Cheuse, Alan. “A Tribute to Saul Bellow.” World Literature Today 80.3 (2006): 19.

  
  

  Suggests that AAM would almost have been enough to remember Bellow by. After Hemingway, no writer did more to enliven and transform the American literary sentence in such a spicy mix of high and low speech. Though stupendous monuments of our great mystery may one day crumble, Bellow’s lines will live on a good long while—in Urdu or Chinese and in beautiful yet undiscovered countries where heart and mind struggle together to live in peace.

• Gold, Herbert. “In Bellow’s Company.” Commentary (Sept 2005): 38–44. Rpt. in “A Genius for Grief: Memories of Saul Bellow.” News from the Republic of Letters16 (2006): 3–25. 

  
  

  Writer Herbert Gold recounts his impressions of Bellow in Paris during 1949–1950. Describes the Bellow of those years as a man already in possession of a Guggenheim and two successful novels, who could be seen lounging gracefully on view at the Café Le Rouquet near Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Contains detailed recollections of his own budding career as he read Bellow, Bellow’s presence in Paris, Bellow’s marital complaints and quarrels during their trip to Spain together, Bellow’s amazing total recall of directions, and his desperate need of an audience, and his exhausting paroxysms of marital despair. Believes Bellow’s gift as a writer was to insist that words matter and that suffering matters. Notes his ambition, his neediness, his unabashed ability to command constant attention, his monologism, his self-love, his extreme touchiness, and his harshness in friendship. Concludes with an account of their final friendly relations, as later in life the two men recounted their losses and mended their fences. 

• Griffith, Michael. “Jostling With The Actual: My Summer With Saul Bellow.” Southern Review 41.4 (Autumn 2005): 726–36. 

  
  

  Recalls images of each of the protagonists and records how close he felt to each of them in his homesickness. Describes responding to Bellow’s language, agility, joy memory, sharply observed detail, devotion to conscience, theatricality, love for humanity, self-awareness, and characters who are prisoners of perception. Applauds Bellow’s happy endings because they are Bellow at his finest—not giving way to nihilism or hopelessness. Concludes that what he learned from Bellow was to immerse himself in dailiness. 

• Kennedy, William. “Saul Bellow: Memorial Remarks.” Salmagundi 153–154 (2007–08): 42–46. Print.

  
  

  Recalls meeting Bellow 45 years ago in Puerto Rico. Bellow was teaching fiction at the University of Puerto Rico and writing Herzog. Describes Bellow meeting with students individually for 30 minutes of conversation at the Faculty Club and critiquing their writing. Speaks of entertaining Bellow for dinner, interviewing him at home in the old Dutch mansion he used as setting for H, speaking with him again in Vermont a year later, again in 1981 after the DD was finished, eating with Bellow and Malamud at the Petit Chef near Wilmington, meeting Bellow again in 1987 in Albany, and then meeting Jack Nicholson. Concludes with a tribute to Bellow for his support of his own work and concludes by commending Bellow’s for his insistence that the world must be outwitted, and that the life of the family is important. 

• Melnyczuk, Askold. “Shadowboxing: An Open Letter to My Students about Captain Violin, Saul Bellow, the War, and the Art of Fiction.” AGNI 62.156–61 (2005): 151–61. Print.

  
  

  Describes being invited for tea in Bellow’s sixth floor office of the School of Theology at Boston University with the “grandmaster” of American prose himself. The conversation ranged across debts to Rudolph Steiner, theosophy, critics, Bellow’s urbane charm and manners, his mystical speculations, the limits of his imagination, and Bellow’s experience at the point of death in hospital when being visited by his brothers. Recalls Bellow speaking on the afterlife and saying, “we are given signs” 161.

• Solotaroff, Ted. “An Evening With Bernard Malamud.” New England Review 24.2 (2003): 27–31. Print.

  
  

  Malamud, while being interviewed by Ted Solotaroff, describes Bellow’s Jewishness as urbane and ethically inclined.