Saul Bellow is the most important American novelist of the post-war years. The body of his work, which now spans a period of some 50 years, offers a penetrating account of the history of the second half of the twentieth century, for Bellow is not only a creator of compelling fictions, but also a leading commentator on the current state of civilization, constantly engaged with the issues of the moment. He is a writer of great comic vision who can gaze without flinching at the horrors that the modern world has inflicted upon itself. His novels of the plight of Western man, a displaced spirit in a world of crushing materialism, won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976.
In the present study, which provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to Bellow's fiction, Peter Hyland gives a brief survey of the novelist's life and career, followed by a chronological account of all his novels; in a separate chapter he considers the most significant of Bellow's short stories. The reader will find here a stimulating guide to Bellow's work and its place in the development of modern literature and ideas.