REDISCOVERING ... Bernard MALAMUD

BERNARD MALAMUD is one of America’s finest, perhaps underappreciated, short-story writers. He is more well known for his novels than for his short stories. His dedication to the craft of fiction writing is undeniable in such novels as The Assistant (1957), A New Life (1961) and The Fixer (1966). The Assistant is perhaps the best of all his novels though he won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Fixer. However, his short stories are wonderful too and should not be ignored. And if you would like to experience his stories, you only need to read The Complete Stories (1997) to enjoy them. He won his first National Book Award in 1958 for his first collection of stories, The Magic Barrel (1958). According to Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post, Malamud’s books’ “… most persistent themes—the search for a new life and the struggle to achieve moral rectitude—have lasting pertinence and have rarely been explored so subtly and perceptively in literature. His prose, at times melancholy and at others jaunty, achieves a near-perfect fusion of American and Jewish-American rhythms. He was as much fabulist as novelist, with the happy result that almost all of his fiction transcends time.”

Bibliography
MALAMUD Bernard [1914-1986] Novelist, short-story writer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. NOVELS God’s Grace (1982); Dubin’s Lives (1979); The Tenants (1971); The Fixer (1966: winner of the 1966 National Book Award for Fiction and the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Literature); A New Life (1961); The Assistant (1957); The Natural (1952) STORIES The Complete Stories (ed. Robert Giroux) (1997); The People and Uncollected Stories (1989); The Stories of Bernard Malamud (1983); Rembrandt’s Hat (1973); Pictures of Fidelman: An Exhibition (1969); Idiots First (1963); The Magic Barrel (1958: winner of the 1958 National Book Award for Fiction) NONFICTION Talking Horse: Bernard Malamud on Life and Work (1996)

Recommended:
Novels: The Assistant (1957); A New Life (1961)
Stories: The Complete Stories (1997); The Magic Barrel (1958)