What to Read Before and After The Adventures of Saul Bellow

Rejoice, Bellowheads: on December 12th, PBS is premiering the first-ever major documentary on Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner Saul Bellow. Directed by Asaf Galay and featuring rare archival footage and interviews with Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, and others, American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow  “traces Bellow’s rise to eminence and examines his many identities: reluctant public intellectual, ‘serial husband,’ father, Chicagoan and Jewish American.”

Here’s what to read before and after the documentary: Bellow takedowns and advice, his Nobel lecture, reflections from his biographers and editors, and more.

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The Best Argument is a Good Book: Writing Advice from Saul Bellow

“The Books Are No Longer Themselves.” Saul Bellow’s Prescient Takedown of Literary Criticism

How Saul Bellow Reckoned with Money and Fame

Writing Bellow’s Biography While He Was Still Alive

Cynthia Ozick on the Letters of Saul Bellow

A Race Against Time: Editing Saul Bellow’s Last Novel

Saul Bellow’s Nobel Lecture from 1976

Saul Bellow: Of Crackpots and Conmen

From the Archives: Saul Bellow Wins the 1954 National Book Award

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