MALAMUD, BERNARD

born April 26, 1914, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. died March 18, 1986, New York, N.Y. American novelist and short-story writer who made parables out of Jewish immigrant life. A son of Russian Jews, Malamud was educated at the City College of New York (B.A., 1936) and Columbia University (M.A., 1942). He taught at high schools in New York City (194049), at Oregon State University (194961), and at Bennington College, Vt. (196166, 196886). His first novel, The Natural (1952), is a fable about a baseball hero who is gifted with miraculous powers. The Assistant (1957) is about a young Gentile hoodlum and an old Jewish grocer. The Fixer (1966) takes place in tsarist Russia. The story of a Jewish handyman unjustly imprisoned for the murder of a Christian boy, it won Malamud a Pulitzer Prize. His other novels are A New Life (1961), The Tenants (1971), Dubin's Lives (1979), and God's Grace (1982). Malamud's genius is most apparent in his short stories. Though told in a spare, compressed prose that reflects the terse speech of their immigrant characters, the stories often burst into emotional, metaphorical language. Grim city neighbourhoods are visited by magical events, and their hardworking residents are given glimpses of love and self-sacrifice. Malamud's short-story collections are The Magic Barrel (1958), Idiots First (1963), Pictures of Fidelman (1969), and Rembrandt's Hat (1973). The Stories of Bernard Malamud appeared in 1983.