Bernard Malamud: A Writer's Life

ISBN-13: 9780199270095 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 400 str.

Philip Davis

Opis

Here is the first full-length biography of Bernard Malamud, the self-made son of poor Jewish immigrants who went on to become one of the foremost novelists and short-story writers of the post-war period, a man who at the peak of his success stood alongside Saul Bellow and Philip Roth in the ranks of Jewish American writers.
To tell Malamud's story, Philip Davis has drawn on exclusive interviews with family, friends, and colleagues; unfettered access to private journals and letters; and detailed analysis of Malamud's working methods through previously unresearched manuscripts. Nothing came easily to Malamud: his family was poor, his mother probably committed suicide when Malamud was 14, and his younger brother inherited her schizophrenia. Davis's meticulous biography explores the many connections between Malamud's life and work, revealing all that it meant for this man to be a writer, both in terms of how he brought his life into his writing and how his writing affected his life. It also restores Bernard Malamud's literary reputation as one of the great original voices of his generation, a writer of superb subtlety and clarity.

Recenzje

Bernard Malamud is in no danger of being forgotten, but in recent years there has perhaps been a tendency to take him for granted. Philip Davis's admirable biography restores the excitement to his name. It lays bare the unexpected quirks and complexities of his character with sympathy and insight; it throws invaluable light on his story-telling, and at the same time makes a fascinating story in itself.

O autorze

Philip Davis is Professor of English Literature in the School of English, University of Liverpool. He has been reading Malamud for over thirty years. The opportunity for this Englishman to write the first-ever biography of this major American novelist arose as a result of a chance meeting at a graduation ceremony in Liverpool, when news reached him that the Malamud family were looking for a biographer after nearly twenty years of discouraging the writing of a life.