
-born Jewish American writer
. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
, the Nobel Prize for Literature
, and the National Medal of Arts
. He is the only writer to have won the National Book Award
three times, and the only writer to have been nominated for it six times.
In the words of the Swedish Nobel Committee
, his writing exhibited "the mixture of rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of our culture, of entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes in quick succession interspersed with philosophic conversation, all developed by a commentator with a witty tongue and penetrating insight into the outer and inner complications that drive us to act, or prevent us from acting, and that can be called the dilemma of our age." His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March
, Henderson the Rain King
, Herzog
, Mr. Sammler's Planet
, Seize the Day, Humboldt's Gift
and Ravelstein
.
There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.
All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination. It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!
We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it — the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.
We mustn't forget how quickly the visions of genius become the canned goods of intellectuals.
I think that New York is not the cultural center of America, but the business and administrative center of American culture.
Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
Once you had read the Sigmund Freud|Psychopathology of Everyday Life, you knew that everyday life was psychopathology.
I never yet touched a fig leaf that didn't turn into a price tag.
No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.
-born Jewish American writer
. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
, the Nobel Prize for Literature
, and the National Medal of Arts
. He is the only writer to have won the National Book Award
three times, and the only writer to have been nominated for it six times.
In the words of the Swedish Nobel Committee
, his writing exhibited "the mixture of rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of our culture, of entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes in quick succession interspersed with philosophic conversation, all developed by a commentator with a witty tongue and penetrating insight into the outer and inner complications that drive us to act, or prevent us from acting, and that can be called the dilemma of our age." His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March
, Henderson the Rain King
, Herzog
, Mr. Sammler's Planet
, Seize the Day, Humboldt's Gift
and Ravelstein
. Widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest authors, Bellow has had a "huge literary influence."
Bellow said that of all his characters Eugene Henderson, of "Henderson the Rain King
," was the one most like himself. Bellow grew up as an insolent slum kid, a "thick-necked" rowdy, and an immigrant from Quebec. As Christopher Hitchens describes it, Bellow's fiction and principal characters reflect his own yearning for transcendence, a battle "to overcome not just ghetto conditions but also ghetto psychoses." Bellow's protagonists, in one shape or another, all wrestle with what Corde (Albert Corde, the dean in "The Dean's December") called "the big-scale insanities of the 20th century." This transcendence of the "unutterably dismal" (a phrase from Dangling Man
) is achieved, if it can be achieved at all, through a "ferocious assimilation of learning" (Hitchens) and an emphasis on nobility.
In 1989, Bellow received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award
is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust
.
Early life
Saul Bellow was born Solomon Bellow in Lachine, Quebec, two years after his parents emigrated from Saint Petersburg
, Russia
. Bellow celebrated his birthday in June, although he may have been born in July (in the Jewish community, it was customary to record the Hebrew date of birth, which does not always coincide with the Gregorian calendar). Of his family's emigration, Bellow wrote:
A period of illness from a respiratory infection at age eight both taught him self-reliance (he was a very fit man despite his sedentary occupation) and provided an opportunity to satisfy his hunger for reading: reportedly, he decided to be a writer when he first read Harriet Beecher Stowe
's Uncle Tom's Cabin
.
When Bellow was nine, his family moved to the Humboldt Park
neighborhood of Chicago
, the city that was to form the backdrop of many of his novels. Bellow's father, Abraham, was an onion importer. He also worked in a bakery, as a coal delivery man, and as a bootlegger. Bellow's mother, Liza, died when he was 17. He was left with his father and brother, Maurice. Maurice later married Joyce and they gave birth to Holly and David. His mother was deeply religious, and wanted her youngest son, Saul, to become a rabbi or a concert violinist. But he rebelled against what he later called the "suffocating orthodoxy" of his religious upbringing, and he began writing at a young age. Bellow's lifelong love for the Bible
began at four when he learned Hebrew
. Bellow also grew up reading William Shakespeare
and the great Russian novelists
of the 19th century. In Chicago, he took part in anthroposophical studies
. Bellow attended Tuley High School on Chicago's west side where he befriended fellow writer Isaac Rosenfeld
. In his 1959 novel Henderson the Rain King
, Bellow modeled the character King Dahfu on Rosenfeld.
Education and early career
Bellow attended the University of Chicagobut later transferred to Northwestern University
. He originally wanted to study literature, but he felt the English department to be anti-Jewish; instead, he graduated with honors in anthropology
and sociology
. It has been suggested Bellow's study of anthropology had an interesting influence on his literary style, and anthropological references pepper his works. Bellow later did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
.
Paraphrasing Bellow's description of his close friend Allan Bloom
(see Ravelstein
), John Podhoretz
has said that both Bellow and Bloom "inhaled books and ideas the way the rest of us breathe air."
In the 1930s, Bellow was part of the Chicago branch of the Works Progress Administration
Writer's Project, which included such future Chicago literary luminaries as Richard Wright
and Nelson Algren
. Most of the writers were radical: if they were not card-carrying members of the Communist Party USA
, they were sympathetic to the cause. Bellow was a Trotskyist
, but because of the greater numbers of Stalinist
-leaning writers he had to suffer their taunts.
In 1941 Bellow became a naturalized US citizen. In 1943, Maxim Lieber
was his literary agent.
During World War II
, Bellow joined the merchant marine
and during his service he completed his first novel, Dangling Man
(1944) about a young Chicago man waiting to be drafted for the war.
From 1946 through 1948 Bellow taught at the University of Minnesota
, living on Commonwealth Avenue, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 1948, Bellow was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
that allowed him to move to Paris
, where he began writing The Adventures of Augie March
(1953). Critics have remarked on the resemblance between Bellow's picaresque novel
and the great 17th Century Spanish classic Don Quixote. The book starts with one of American literature's most famous opening paragraphs, and it follows its titular character through a series of careers and encounters, as he lives by his wits and his resolve. Written in a colloquial yet philosophical style, The Adventures of Augie March established Bellow's reputation as a major author.
In the late 1950s he taught creative writing at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. One of his students was William Kennedy
, who was encouraged by Bellow to write fiction.
Return to Chicago
Bellow lived in New York Cityfor a number of years, but he returned to Chicago
in 1962 as a professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago
. The committee's goal was to have professors work closely with talented graduate students on a multi-disciplinary approach to learning. Bellow taught on the committee for more than 30 years, alongside his close friend, the philosopher Allan Bloom
.
There were also other reasons for Bellow's return to Chicago, where he moved into the Hyde Park
neighborhood with his third wife, Susan Glassman. Bellow found Chicago to be vulgar but vital, and more representative of America than New York. He was able to stay in contact with old high school friends and a broad cross-section of society. In a 1982 profile, Bellow's neighborhood was described as a high-crime area in the city's center, and Bellow maintained he had to live in such a place as a writer and "stick to his guns."
Bellow hit the bestseller list in 1964 with his novel Herzog
. Bellow was surprised at the commercial success of this cerebral novel 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 novel's title character, Von Humboldt Fleisher. Bellow also used Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science, anthroposophy, as a theme in the book, having attended a study group in Chicago. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1969.
Nobel Prize

in literature in 1976. In the 70-minute address he gave to an audience in Stockholm
, Sweden
, Bellow called on writers to be beacons for civilization and awaken it from intellectual torpor.
The following year, the National Endowment for the Humanities
selected Bellow for the Jefferson Lecture
, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities
. Bellow's lecture was entitled "The Writer and His Country Look Each Other Over."
Bellow traveled widely throughout his life, mainly to Europe
, which he sometimes visited twice a year. As a young man, Bellow went to Mexico City
to meet Leon Trotsky
, but the expatriate Russian revolutionary was assassinated the day before they were to meet. Bellow's social contacts were wide and varied. He tagged along with Robert F. Kennedy
for a magazine profile he never wrote, he was close friends with the author Ralph Ellison
. His many friends included the journalist Sydney J. Harris and the poet John Berryman
.
While sales of Bellow's first few novels were modest, that turned around with Herzog
. Bellow continued teaching well into his old age, enjoying its human interaction and exchange of ideas. He taught at Yale University
, University of Minnesota
, New York University
, Princeton University
, University of Puerto Rico
, University of Chicago
, Bard College
and Boston University
, where he co-taught a class with James Wood
('modestly absenting himself' when it was time to discuss Seize the Day). In order to take up his appointment at Boston, Bellow moved in 1993 from Chicago
to Brookline, Massachusetts
, where he died on April 5, 2005, at age 89. He is buried at the Jewish cemetery Shir HeHarim of Brattleboro, Vermont
.
Bellow was married five times, with all but his last marriage ending in divorce. His son by his second marriage, Adam, published a nonfiction book In Praise of Nepotism in 2003. Bellow's wives were Anita Goshkin, Alexandra Tsachacbasov, Susan Glassman, Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea
and Janis Freedman. In 1999, when he was 84, Bellow had a daughter, his fourth child, with Freedman.
While he read voluminously, Bellow also played the violin and followed sports. Work was a constant for him, but he at times toiled at a plodding pace on his novels, frustrating the publishing company.
His early works earned him the reputation as one of the foremost novelists of the 20th century, and by his death he was widely regarded to be one of the greatest living novelists. He was the first novelist to win the National Book Award
three times. His friend and protege Philip Roth
has said of him, "The backbone of 20th-century American literature has been provided by two novelists – William Faulkner
and Saul Bellow. Together they are the Melville
, Hawthorne
, and Twain
of the 20th century." James Wood
, in a eulogy of Bellow in The New Republic
, wrote:
Themes and style
The author's works speak to the disorienting nature of modern civilization, and the countervailing ability of humans to overcome their frailty and achieve greatness (or at least awareness). Bellow saw many flaws in modern civilization, and its ability to foster madness, materialism and misleading knowledge. Principal characters in Bellow's fiction have heroic potential, and many times they stand in contrast to the negative forces of society. Often these characters are Jewish and have a sense of alienation or otherness.Jewish life and identity is a major theme in Bellow's work, although he bristled at being called a "Jewish writer." Bellow's work also shows a great appreciation of America, and a fascination with the uniqueness and vibrancy of the American experience.
Bellow's work abounds in references and quotes from the likes of Marcel Proust
and Henry James
, but he offsets these high-culture references with jokes. Bellow interspersed autobiographical elements into his fiction, and many of his principal characters were said to bear a resemblance to him.
Criticism, controversy and conservative cultural activism
Martin Amisdescribed Bellow as "The greatest American author ever, in my view".
For Linda Grant, "what Bellow had to tell us in his fiction was that it was worth it, being alive."
On the other hand, Bellow's detractors considered his work conventional and old-fashioned, as if the author was trying to revive the 19th century European novel. In a private letter, Vladimir Nabokov
once referred to Bellow as a "miserable mediocrity." Journalist and author Ron Rosenbaum
described Bellow's Ravelstein
(2000) as the only book that rose above Bellow's failings as an author. Rosenbaum wrote,
Sam Tanenhaus
wrote in New York Times Book Review in 2007:
But, Tanenhaus went on to answer his question:
V. S. Pritchett
praised Bellow, finding his shorter works to be his best. Pritchett called Bellow's novella Seize the Day a "small gray masterpiece."
Bellow's account of his 1975 trip to Israel
, To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account, was criticized by Noam Chomsky
in his 1983 book Fateful Triangle: the United States, Israel & the Palestinians. Bellow, Chomsky wrote, "sees an Israel where ‘almost everyone is reasonable and tolerant, and rancor against the Arabs is rare,’ where the people ‘think so hard, and so much’ as they ‘farm a barren land, industrialize it, build cities, make a society, do research, philosophize, write books, sustain a great moral tradition, and finally create an army of tough fighters.’ He has also been criticized for having praised Joan Peters
's book, From Time Immemorial
, which denied the existence of Palestinians and was exposed almost immediately after publication as containing gross falsifications of the sources it cited.
As he grew older, Bellow moved decidedly away from leftist politics and became identified with cultural conservatism
. His opponents included feminism
, campus activism and postmodernism
. In 1995 along with Lynne V. Cheney and other noted conservatives, he helped found the American Council of Trustees and Alumni
(ACTA) based in Washington, D.C.
and funded by the conservative Bradley Foundation
and John M. Olin Foundation
Promoting the Core Curriculum view of liberal education, the ACTA is best known for its 2001 report, Defending Civilization . . . , which met with wide criticism and accusations of neo-McCarthyism, because it served as a broadside against a "liberal academia" that the report authors saw as being insufficiently patriotic and "soft" on international terrorism. Following a barrage of criticism, ACTA published a "revised and expanded" version.
Bellow also thrust himself into the often contentious realm of Jewish and African-American relations. In Mr. Sammler's Planet
, Bellow's portrayal of a black pickpocket who exposes himself in public was criticized, by some activists, as racist. In 2007, attempts to name a street after Bellow in his Hyde Park neighborhood were scotched by local alderman on the grounds that Bellow had made remarks about the neighborhood's current inhabitants that they considered racist.
In an interview in the March 7, 1988 New Yorker
, Bellow sparked a controversy when he asked, concerning multiculturalism
, "Who is the Tolstoy
of the Zulus? The Proust
of the Papuans
? I'd be glad to read him." The taunt was seen by some as a slight against non-Western literature. Bellow at first claimed to have been misquoted. Later, writing in his defense in the New York Times, he said, "The scandal is entirely journalistic
in origin... Always foolishly trying to explain and edify all comers, I was speaking of the distinction between literate and preliterate societies. For I was once an anthropology student, you see." Bellow claimed to have remembered shortly after making his infamous comment that he had in fact read a Zulu novel in translation: Chaka by Thomas Mofolo (an inaccuracy remains in this: Mofolo's novel is in Sesotho, not Zulu).
Despite his identification with Chicago, he kept aloof from some of that city's more conventional writers. Studs Terkel
in a 2006 interview with Stop Smiling magazine said of Bellow: "I didn't know him too well. We disagreed on a number of things politically. In the protests in the beginning of Norman Mailer's
Armies of the Night, when Mailer, Robert Lowell
and Paul Goodman
were marching to protest the Vietnam War
, Bellow was invited to a sort of counter-gathering. He said, 'Of course I'll attend'. But he made a big thing of it. Instead of just saying OK, he was proud of it. So I wrote him a letter and he didn't like it. He wrote me a letter back. He called me a Stalinist. But otherwise, we were friendly. He was a brilliant writer, of course. I love Seize the Day."
Quotations
"[There is] an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.""I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction."
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
"People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned."
Novels and novellas
- Dangling ManDangling Man-Plot summary:Written in diary format, the story centers on the life of an unemployed young man named Joseph, his relationships with his wife and friends, and his frustrations with life. Living in Chicago and waiting to be drafted, the diary acts as a philosophical confessional for his musings...
(1944) - The Victim (1947)
- The Adventures of Augie MarchThe Adventures of Augie MarchThe Adventures of Augie March is a novel by Saul Bellow.It centers on the eponymous character who grows up during the Great Depression...
(1953) - Seize the Day (1956)
- Henderson the Rain KingHenderson the Rain KingHenderson the Rain King is a 1959 novel by Saul Bellow. The book's blend of philosophical discourse and comic adventure has helped make it one of his most enduringly popular works.It is said to be Bellow's own favorite amongst his books....
(1959) - HerzogHerzog (novel)Herzog is a 1964 novel by Saul Bellow. Letters from the protagonist constitute much of the text.Herzog won the 1965 National Book Award for Fiction and the The Prix International...
(1964) - Mr. Sammler's PlanetMr. Sammler's PlanetMr. Sammler's Planet is a 1970 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. It was awarded the National Book Award for fiction in 1971.- Plot synopsis :Mr...
(1970) - Humboldt's GiftHumboldt's GiftHumboldt's Gift is a 1975 novel by Saul Bellow, which won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and contributed to Bellow's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year....
(1975), won the 1976 Pulitzer PrizePulitzer Prize for FictionThe Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:... - The Dean's DecemberThe Dean's DecemberThe Dean's December is a 1982 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. The first novel Bellow published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, it is set in Chicago and Bucharest...
(1982) - More Die of HeartbreakMore Die of HeartbreakMore Die of Heartbreak is a 1987 novel by the American author Saul Bellow, and was his tenth novel. Like most of Bellow's other works, More Die of Heartbreak is grounded more in the development of character than in the growth of action. Among its themes are the difficulties of reconciling one's...
(1987) - A TheftA TheftA Theft is a 1989 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. Bellow originally wanted to publish the book as a story or serial in a magazine such as The New Yorker, but his agent had trouble selling it to any magazine...
(1989) - The Bellarosa ConnectionThe Bellarosa ConnectionThe Bellarosa Connection is a 1989 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. The book takes the form of an ongoing dialogue between the Fonstein family about the impact of the Jewish Holocaust. This is an especially significant story as it represents, along with Mr. Sammler's Planet, Bellow's most...
(1989) - The ActualThe Actual (novel)The Actual is a 1997 novel by the American author Saul Bellow.-Plot synopsis:Like most of Bellow's fiction, the story centers on the lives of a group of passionate and anxious people living in Chicago. Harry Trellman has formed a friendship with the fabulously wealthy Sigmund Adletsky...
(1997) - RavelsteinRavelsteinRavelstein is Saul Bellow's final novel.Published in 2000, when Bellow was eighty-five years old, it received widespread critical acclaim. It tells the tale of a friendship between two university professors and the complications that animate their erotic and intellectual attachments in the face of...
(2000)
Short Story Collections
- Mosby's Memoirs (1968)
- Him with His Foot in His Mouth (1984)
- Something to Remember Me By: Three Tales (1991)
- Collected Stories (2001)
Library of America editions
- Novels 1944-1953: Dangling Man, The Victim, The Adventures of Augie March (2003)
- Novels 1956-1964: Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog (2007)
- Novels 1970-1982: Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Humboldt’s Gift, The Dean’s December (2010)
Translations
- Gimpel the FoolGimpel the Fool"Gimpel the Fool" is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated into English by Saul Bellow in 1953. It tells the story of Gimpel, a simple bread maker who is the butt of many of his town's jokes. It also gives its name to the collection first published in 1957...
(1945) by Isaac Bashevis SingerIsaac Bashevis SingerIsaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...
(trans. by Bellow in 1953)
Non-Fiction
- To Jerusalem and Back (1976) - Memoir
- It All Adds Up (1994) - Essay collection
- Saul Bellow: Letters, edited by Benjamin TaylorBenjamin Taylor (author)Benjamin Taylor is an American writer whose work has appeared in a number of publications including Esquire, Bookforum, BOMB, the Los Angeles Times, The Georgia Review, Raritan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, Provincetown Arts and The Reading Room...
(2010) - Correspondence
Works about Saul Bellow
- Saul Bellow, Tony Tanner (1965) (see also his City of Words [1971])
- Saul Bellow, Malcolm BradburyMalcolm BradburySir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBE was an English author and academic.-Life:Bradbury was the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother...
(1982) - Saul Bellow Drumlin Woodchuck,Mark Harris, University of Georgia Press. (1982)
- Saul Bellow: Modern Critical Views, Harold BloomHarold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
(Ed.) (1986) - Handsome Is: Adventures with Saul Bellow, Harriet Wasserman (1997)
- Saul Bellow and the Decline of Humanism, Michael K Glenday (1990)
- Saul Bellow: A Biography of the Imagination, Ruth Miller, St. Martins Pr. (1991)
- Bellow: A Biography, James AtlasJames AtlasJames Atlas , is the president of Atlas & Company, publishers, and founding editor of the Penguin Lives Series.A Harvard graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and onetime contributor to The New Yorker, he was an editor at The New York Times Magazine for many years.He has edited volumes of poetry and has...
(2000) - "Even Later" and "The American Eagle" in Martin AmisMartin AmisMartin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
, The War Against Cliché (2001) are celebratory. The latter essay is also found in the Everyman's LibraryEveryman's LibraryEveryman's Library is a series of reprinted classic literature currently published in hardback by Random House. It was originally an imprint of J. M. Dent , who continue to publish Everyman Classics in paperback.J. M. Dent and Company began to publish the series in 1906...
edition of Augie March. - 'Saul Bellow's comic style': James WoodJames Wood (critic)James Wood is a literary critic, essayist and novelist. he is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:...
in The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel, 2004. ISBN 0-224-06450-9. - The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo , Stephanie Halldorson (2007)
- Saul Bellow a song, written by Sufjan Stevens on The Avalanche
See also
- List of Jewish Nobel laureates
- PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American FictionPEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American FictionThe PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction is awarded by the PEN American Center "to a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which place him or...
- Wilhelm ReichWilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
External links
- Mr. Sammler's City, City Journal, Spring 2008
- Nobel site with two speeches (one of which is an audio recording) & longer biography
- Annotated Bibliography of Criticism by the Saul Bellow Society
- Bellow's 1955 autobiographical statement for reference book
- JM Coetzee on the early novels
- Slates assortment of other writers' takes on Bellow, mostly eulogistic
- Joyce Carol Oates on Saul Bellow
- Saul Bellow 'Bookweb' on literary website The Ledge, with suggestions for further reading.
- Blogpost on Bellow's Russian family name–Belo or Belov?
- Review of Bellow's collected letters
- Saul Bellow, a neocon’s tale by John PodhoretzJohn PodhoretzJohn Podhoretz is an American neoconservative columnist for the New York Post, the editor of Commentary magazine, the author of several books on politics, and a former presidential speechwriter.-Life and career:...
- Reflections with Saul Bellow by Dejan Stojanović
- Saul Bellow's grave, Brattleboro, Vermont
- 'Between Fiction and Autobiography', review of Letters in The Oxonian ReviewThe Oxonian ReviewThe Oxonian Review is a literature and arts review journal produced by graduate students at the University of Oxford. Each week during term time, an online edition is published featuring reviews and essays on current affairs and literature...
- "Bellow and Trotsky", Judie Newman, Berfrois, 1 June 2011