10 Great American Jewish Novelists
"There is a whole school of Jewish American writers who spend their time damning their fathers, hating their mothers, wringing their hands and wondering why they were born. This isn't art or literature. It's psychiatry."
- Leon Uris
"I know exactly what it means to be Jewish, and it’s really not interesting. I’m an American... America is first and foremost ... it’s my language. Identity labels have nothing to do with how anyone actually experiences life... I don’t accept that I write Jewish-American fiction. I don’t buy that nonsense about black literature or feminist literature. Those are labels made up to strengthen some political agenda".
- Philip Roth
"If you ever forget you're a Jew, a Gentile will remind you".
- Bernard Malamud
Philip (Milton) Roth
(b. 1933, Newark, New Jersey, USA)
Considered America's greatest living novelist. His work has mostly been about modern post-war American society, with an emphasis on angst-ridden Jewish life. His debut collection of short fiction, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), gained him the National Book Award in 1960 and his best known novel is the controversial Portnoy's Complaint (1969). He has received many awards and honours, including in 1997 the Pulitzer Prize (for American Pastoral) and in 2002 the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction.
The Philip Roth Society
Books:
Philip Roth, The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography (Vintage, 1997)
Philip Roth and Martin Asher, Reading Myself and Others (Vintage, 2001)
Alan Cooper, Philip Roth and the Jews (SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture) (State University of New York Press, 1996)
Philip Roth, George J. Searles (Ed.), Conversations With Philip Roth (University Press of Mississippi, 1992)
Sidney Sheldon (Sidney Schechtel)
(b. 1917, Chicago, Illinois, USA; d. 2007, Rancho Mirage, California, USA)
Best-selling novelist, Broadway playwright and Hollywood TV and movie screenwriter. After active service in the US Airforce, he pursued a successful career as a Broadway and Hollywood writer before publishing his first novel, The Naked Face, in 1967. He won numerous awards for his theatre, film, TV and literary work and in 1997 was honoured by The Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Translated Author in the World. Meet Sidney Sheldon
Books:
Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Me (Vision, 2006)
Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight (Grand Central Publishing, 1998)
Sidney Sheldon, The Naked Face (Grand Central Publishing, 1985)
Bernard Malamud
(b. 1914, New York, NY, USA; d. 1986 New York, NY, USA)
Novelist, short story writer and teacher whose original fables of Jewish-American life were in contrast to the more realistic storytelling of fellow Jewish writers. In his short fiction in particular he examines the plight of an immigrant generation in its encounters with New World society. Most notable among his work are The Assistant (1957), God's Grace (1982) and The Stories of Bernard Malamud (1983). The Fixer (1966) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and he twice won the National Book Award. In 1967 he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Life of Bernard Malamud
Books:
Philip Davis. Bernard Malamud: A Writer's Life (Oxford University, 2007)
Joyce W. Field and Leslie A. Field, Bernard Malamud: A Collection of Critical Essays (Twentieth Century Views) (Prentice Hall Trade, 1975)
Evelyn Gross Avery, The Magic Worlds of Bernard Malamud (SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture) (State University of New York Press, 2001)
Edna Ferber
(b. 1885, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA; d. 1968, New York, NY, USA)
Novelist, playwright and short story writer considered the greatest American woman novelist of her day. She was a newspaper reporter at the age of 17 and used her journalistic experiences in her first novel, Dawn O'Hara (1911) . Usually with a strong female character at their centre, her books told about the lives of ordinary Americans. Her novel So Big (1924), the story of a woman's struggle for independence, won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into two film adaptations. Show Boat (1926) became a successful musical (by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein ll) and a later novel, Giant (1952), was filmed with Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean.
Books: Edna Ferber, Buttered Side Down: Stories (BiblioBazaar, 2007)
Julie Gilbert, Ferber: Edna Ferber and Her Circle (Applause Books, 2000)
Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure (Doubleday & Company, 1939)
Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic (Doubleday & Company, 1963)
Isaac Asimov (Isaak Judah Ozimov)
(b. 1920, Petrovichi, Soviet Republic; d. 1992, New York, NY, USA)
Russian-born, Yiddish speaking American novelist, essayist, critic and short story writer. A biochemist by training (earning his doctorate at Columbia University), he became a prolific and influential writer of science fiction. He was also the author of popular science and history non-fiction and science text books . He received many awards for his writing and in 1997 was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Audio Interview with Isaac Asimov
Books:
Isaac Asimov, I.Asimov: A Memoir (Bantam, 1995)
Carl Howard Freedman and Isaac Asimov, Conversations With Isaac Asimov (Literary Conversations Series) (University Press of Mississippi, 2005)
Isaac Asimov, I, Robot (The Isaac Asimov Collection) (Doubleday, 1988)
Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Vol. 1 (Broadway, 1990)
Isaac Asimov, The Tyrannosaurus Prescription: And 100 Other Essays (Prometheus Books, 1989)
Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Chronology of the World (Collins, 1991)
Isaac Asimov and D.F. Bach, Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos (Plume, 1992)
Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Guide to the Bible: A Historical Look at the Old and New Testaments (Gramercy, 1988)
Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, The Roving Mind (Prometheus Books, 1997)
Saul Bellow (Solomon Bellows)
(b. 1915, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; d. 2005, Brookline, Massachusetts, USA)
Novelist and playwright who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work". He was one of an elite group of American-Jewish writers who became central to American literature after World War ll.. He secured his reputation as a novelist with The Adventures of Augie March (1953), which received the National Book Award for fiction, and won further acclaim with Herzog (1964) and Mr Sammler's Planet (1970). In 1976 Humboldt's Gift (1975) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Saul Bellow Society
Books:
Saul Bellow, It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future (Penguin, 1995)
Saul Bellow, Saul Bellow: Collected Stories (Penguin, 2002)
Gloria L. Cronin and Ben Siegel, Conversations With Saul Bellow (Literary Conversations Series) (University Press of Mississippi, 1994)
James Atlas, Bellow: A Biography (Modern Library, 2002)
Harold Bloom (Ed.), Saul Bellow (Bloom's Modern Critical Views) (Chelsea House Publications, 2000)
Herman Wouk
(b. 1915, New York, NY, USA)
Author of many best-selling novels including Marjorie Morningstar (1955), essential reading for teenage Jewish girls in the 1950s and 60s. He drew on his experience in the US navy in World War ll for his Pulitzer Prize-winning war novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), which became a successful play and film. His historical fiction, The Winds of War (1971) and War and Remembrance (1978), were made into popular television miniseries. A committed Jew, he has also written on Jewish belief and practices. In 1998 he received the Guardian of Zion Award.
Books:
Herman Wouk, The Winds of War (Back Bay Books, 2002)
Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance (Back Bay Books, 2002)
Herman Wouk, This Is My God (Back Bay Books, 1992)
Herman Wouk, The Will to Live On : This is Our Heritage (HarperCollins Publishers, 2000)
Arnold Beichman, Herman Wouk: The Novelist as Social Historian (Transaction Publishers, 2004)
Laurence W. Mazzeno, Herman Wouk (Twayne Publishers, 1994)
Norman (Kingsley) Mailer
(b. 1923, Long Branch, New Jersey, USA; d. 2007, New York, NY, USA)
Writer of essays and novels encapsulating the American experience since World War ll. He made his mark with The Naked and the Dead (1948), based on his time as a soldier in the South Pacific. His novel The Armies of the Night (1968) won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and he was awarded a second Pulitzer Prize for The Executioner's Song (1979). Active in politics, he demonstrated against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
Norman Mailer - Obituary
Books:
Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition, With a New Introduction by the Author (Picador, 2000)
Norman Mailer and John Buffalo, The Big Empty: Dialogues on Politics, Sex, God, Boxing, Morality, Myth, Poker and Bad Conscience in America (Nation Books, 2006)
J. Michael Lennon (Ed.), Conversations with Norman Mailer (Literary Conversations Series) (University Press of Mississippi, 1988)
Norman Mailer, The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004)
Carl E. Rollyson, The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography (Paragon House Publishers, 1991)
Leon (Marcus) Uris
(b. 1924, Baltimore, Maryland, USA; d. 2003, Shelter Island, New York, USA)
The author of carefully researched blockbusters, many using contemporary Jewish history as their theme, such as Mila 18 (1961), The Haj (1984) and Mitla Pass (1988). The book by which he is best known, Exodus (1958), has been translated into 50 languages and was made into a highly successful film (see Film Directors).
Tribute: Leon Uris