born April 26, 1914, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.
died March 18, 1986, New York, N.Y.
U.S. novelist and short-story writer.
Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants, he was educated at City College of New York and Columbia University, and he later taught principally at Bennington College. His novels, which often make parables out of Jewish immigrant life, include The Natural (1952), about a baseball hero; The Assistant (1957), about a Jewish grocer and a Gentile hoodlum; and The Fixer (1966, Pulitzer Prize), often considered his finest novel. His genius is most apparent in his stories, collected in The Magic Barrel (1958), Idiots First (1963), Pictures of Fidelman (1969), and Rembrandt's Hat (1973).