Bernard Malamud

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Bernard Malamud (before 1971)

Bernard Malamud (born April 26, 1914 in Brooklyn , New York City , † March 18, 1986 ibid) was an American writer . His work, for which he received twice the National Book Award and once the Pulitzer Prize , includes six novels and a fragment of a play, more than 40 short stories. Malamud, whose stories and novels have also received international recognition, is counted among the most important Jewish- American writers of the 20th century , along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth .

life and work

Malamud was born the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Like the Bobers in his novel The Assistant , his parents Max and Bertha Fidelman Malamud ran a small grocery store in Brooklyn sixteen hours a day. Malamud's origins were often expressed in the themes and motifs of his stories, although the diversity and complexity and the peculiarity of his literary work cannot be explained solely by his origins and the connection to the Jewish narrative tradition. However, the types of are schlemiel and schlimozel or air human basis for many of his heroes. In the same way, the ghetto environment, which is characterized by constant uncertainty or threat, and the mentality of the shtetl are an essential source for the notion of the world as a prison or a grave that pervades his novels and short stories. The moral greatness of Malamud's protagonists and narrative characters, who in this respect represent a modern variation and interpretation of classic Jewish narrative patterns, is reflected in many places in the way they cope with a life in which they are innocently unlucky under a schlim mazel , an evil star , were born and are therefore always in a mess .

After completing his education at Erasmus Hall High School, he studied at City College of New York and at Columbia University there ; then he worked as a government employee and taught at night schools. From 1949 to 1961 he taught English at Oregon State University , and since 1961 at Bennington College in Vermont literature and linguistics and creative writing.

Malamud's grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge

It wasn't until the late 1940s that he began to write; first short stories , later also novels . For this he traveled to Europe , the Soviet Union and Israel . He wrote numerous short stories and some novels, which are primarily devoted to the city of New York with a Jewish connection. His best known novel The Fixer (inspired by the Beilis Trial ) won the National Book Award in 1966 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 in the fiction category. Malamud's novel "The Natural" was the model for the film The Unyielding with Robert Redford in the lead role.

Like Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Malamud can be assigned to the group of Jewish-American writers on the one hand due to his Jewish descent , on the other hand, his activity as a university lecturer adds him, like Bellow, to the ranks of academic novelists who worked for American literature of the 1940s and 1950s Years played a role that can hardly be overestimated. Like Roth, Malamud has also written a college novel with A New Life and also some short stories set in the university sector.

Malamud's literary theoretical statements characterize him as a humanist and moralist whose goal is “the promotion, but not the rejection of society” ( “affirmation, not rejection, of society” ); According to Malamud's postulate, the writer's task is to protect civilization from destroying itself ( "The purpose of the writer [...] is to keep civilization from destroying itself" ) and to restore the "humanity of man" ( "My work, all of it, is a dedication to the human. That's basic to every book. If you don't respect man, you cannot respect my work. I'm in defense of the human" ).

Accordingly, his stories and novels are not only about simple immigrant shopkeepers and craftsmen in a world of suffering and failure, but also about encounters between assimilated American and Orthodox European Jews (e.g. in The Last Mohican ) and the relationships between the Jewish ones and black ethnic minorities in the United States (e.g., Angel Levine or The Tenants ). In addition to stories from the American college milieu, Malamud's work also includes artist stories, some of which are set in Italy, in which the subject of self-discovery through art is taken up and varied, or attempts to redesign the mythical theme of waste land .

Characteristic of Malamud's narrative form, in addition to the diversity and complexity of the literary and intertextual references or references, is his mixture of realistic-naturalistic depiction and lyrical-symbolic depiction, that “juxtaposition and confusion of the everyday and the extraordinary, the trivial and the transcendent, the socially critical detail and the allegorical Frame of reference ”from which his prose derives its uniqueness. In this connection of everyday reality and parable or myth or the archetypal quest , in Malamud's stories and novels, the individual action becomes a representative event, the personal action becomes a vicarious suffering and the human action of the simple individual becomes the redeeming act of a mythical hero. In Malamud's fictional world, in which everyday failures assume the inevitability of tragic defeats, it is precisely from failure that people gain their ability to survive; weakness becomes strength. Following on from the Jewish ethical key concept of the revenge monies , which emphasizes mercy or compassion and mutual interpersonal responsibility for one another, in Malamud's stories or fantastic fables full of unreal and profound allegorical events even the painful existence becomes bearable. His novels and stories also have a timeless, universal meaning when describing the Jewish milieu : According to Malamud, “all men are Jews” ; accordingly, for Malamud his Jewish narrative characters or protagonists are not primarily the representatives of a certain ethnic or religious group, but universal representatives of all modern people in their existential condition who suffer and strive for moral behavior.

Malamud's work is now internationally recognized in the readership and literary criticism; the numerous reviews and the impressive series of literary prizes reflect his success and the top position in American post-war literature as well as the much-acclaimed film adaptations of The Natural (German title: The Unyielding ) or The Fixer (German title: A man like Job ) and the frequent anthologizations of his short stories , seven of which were included in the “Best American stories” between 1950 and 1970 or received an O. Henry Award . The steadily growing interest in literary criticism was also documented by Richman's monograph and Field's extensive anthology Bernard Malamud and the Critics with around 80 essays that show the breadth of his work and the influence of American, Yiddish and European narrative traditions on his work.

From 1979 to 1981, Bernard Malamud was President of the American PEN Club. He died of a heart attack in 1986 .

Important awards

Works (selection)

Novels:

  • The Natural (1952, German: The Unyielding , 1984)
  • The Assistant (1957, German: Der Gehilfe , 1961)
  • A New Life (1961, German: A New Life , 1964)
  • The Fixer (1966, German: Der Fixer , 1968)
  • The Tenants (1971, German: Die Mieter , 1973)
  • Dubin's Lives (1977, German: Die Leben des William Dubin . Translation Walter Hasenclever . 1980)

Prose collections:

  • The Magic Barrel (1958, German: The Magic Barrel )
  • Idiots First (1963, German: Black is my favorite color )
  • Pictures of Fidelman: An Exhibition (1969, German: Pictures at an exhibition )

Short prose (individual works):

Film adaptations

  • 1968: A Man Like Job ( The Fixer )
  • 1970: An angel named Levin ( The Angel Levine )
  • 1978: Der Gehilfe (TV film BRD)
  • 1984: The indomitable
  • 1997: The Assistant
  • 2006: The Tenants

See also

literature

  • Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Martin Christadler (Ed.): American literature of the present in single representations (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 412). Kröner, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , pp. 105-128.
  • Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Ders .: The American Short Story after 1945 · Salinger · Malamud · Baldwin · Purdy · Barth . Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , pp. 180–245.
  • Philip Roth , Pictures of Malamud. In: The New York Times , April 20, 1986 ( online ). - Reprinted in: ders., Shop Talk , London: Vintage, 2002, pp. 120–130
  • Franz Link: Bernard Malamud . In: Ders .: American storytellers since 1950 - Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn u. a. 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , pp. 120-135.
  • Pascal Fischer: Yidishkeyt and Jewishness: Identity in Jewish-American literature with special emphasis on language: Cahan's "Yekl", Lewisohn's "The island within", Roth's "Call it sleep", Malamud's "The assistant" . Heidelberg: Winter, 2003 ISBN 3-8253-1567-3 Zugl .: Würzburg, Univ., Diss., 2003. Vita p. 26f.
  • Janna Malamud Smith: My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud. 2006.
  • Philip Davis: Bernard Malamud: a writer's life. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford et al. 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-927009-5 .
  • Bernard Malamud. In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Kindlers Literatur Lexikon . 3rd, completely revised edition. Volume 10. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 , pp. 555-559 (biogram, work article on The Fixer , on The Tenants and God's Grace by Peter Freese, on The Assistant by Jerôme von Gebsattel).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. the information and evidence in Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Ders .: The American Short Story after 1945 · Salinger · Malamud · Baldwin · Purdy · Barth . Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 183, and Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , p. 123 f. See also Franz Link: Bernard Malamud " . In: Ders .: American storytellers since 1950 - Topics · Contents · Shapes . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn et al. 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , pp. 120f.
  2. ↑ Bernard Malamud , accessed July 20, 2017
  3. ↑ See Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , p. 125, and Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Ders .: The American Short Story after 1945 · Salinger · Malamud · Baldwin · Purdy · Barth . Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 185.
  4. ^ Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , p. 104f.
  5. ↑ Cf. Franz Link: Bernard Malamud " . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 - Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn et al. 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , p. 120, and Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Ders .: The American short story after 1945 · Salinger · Malamud · Baldwin · Purdy · Barth, Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , pp. 184f.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Ders .: The American Short Story after 1945 · Salinger · Malamud · Baldwin · Purdy · Barth . Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , pp. 184f.
  7. ↑ See in detail Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , pp. 112-123.
  8. ↑ See in detail Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , pp. 112-123, in particular pp. 112f., 115, 118f. and 120. See also Alfred Hornung: Postmodernism to the Present - The Jewish-American Novel - Bernard Malamud. In: Hubert Zapf (ed.): American literary history . 2nd updated edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-476-02036-3 , p. 320ff.
  9. ↑ See Sidney Richman: Bernard Malamud , New York 1966, and Leslie A. Field and Joyce W. Field (eds.): Bernard Malamud and the critics . New York 1970. Cf. also the information and evidence from Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud. In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , pp. 123-125.
  10. ^ Members: Bernard Malamud. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 12, 2019 (with awards notes).
  11. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 2, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Malamud, Bernard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1986
Place of death New York City