Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec in 1915 and raised in Chicago. He received a bachelor鈥檚 degree with honors in sociology and anthropology from Northwestern University in 1937 and then carried out graduate work at the University of Wisconsin. He served in the Merchant Marine during World War II. Bellow taught at Bard College, Princeton University, and the University of Minnesota. He Bellow served on the committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago for more than 30 years.
Bellow鈥檚 first novel, Dangling Man, was published in 1944. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1948 and spent two years in Paris where he began The Adventures of Augie March, which won the National Book Award for fiction in 1954. His other books include Seize the Day published in 1956, Henderson the Rain King published in 1959, the bestseller Herzog published in 1964, Mosby鈥檚 Memoirs and Other Stories published in 1968 and Mr. Sammler鈥檚 Planet published in 1970.
Bellow became the first American to receive the International Literary Prize in 1965. He won both the Nobel Prize in literature and Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1976. Bellow is the only writer to win the National Book Award for fiction three times including in 1954, 1965 and 1971.
Bellow delivered the Beatty Lecture on November 7, 1976, titled "Joyce's Ulysses: A Personal View".
Image: University of Chicago Archives
