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Bernard Malamud
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== Biography == Bernard Malamud was born on April 26, 1914, in [[Brooklyn, New York]], the son of Bertha (née Fidelman) and Max Malamud, [[Russian Jewish]] immigrants who owned and operated a succession of grocery stores in the [[Williamsburg, Brooklyn|Williamsburg]], [[Borough Park, Brooklyn|Borough Park]] and [[Flatbush, Brooklyn|Flatbush]] sections of the borough, culminating in the 1924 opening of a German-style [[delicatessen]] (specializing in "cheap canned goods, bread, vegetables, some cheese and cooked meats")<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Du0TDAAAQBAJ&q=deli | isbn=978-0-19-927009-5 | title=Bernard Malamud: A Writer's Life | date=13 September 2007 | publisher=OUP Oxford | access-date=11 February 2024 | archive-date=12 April 2024 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240412180913/https://books.google.com/books?id=Du0TDAAAQBAJ&q=deli#v=snippet&q=deli&f=false | url-status=live }}</ref> at 1111 [[McDonald Avenue]] on the western fringe of Flatbush. (Then known as [[Gravesend, Brooklyn|Gravesend]] Avenue, the thoroughfare received its current moniker in 1934, while the surrounding community—abutting the elevated [[BMT Culver Line]] and characterized as a "very poor" subsection of the neighborhood in a contemporaneous demographic survey of [[Brooklyn College]] students<ref>{{cite book | url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015076474587&view=1up&seq=47&skin=2021&q1=gravesend | title=Economic status of Brooklyn college students (In 1933) | date=1935 | access-date=2024-02-09 | archive-date=2024-04-12 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240412180849/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015076474587&view=1up&seq=47&skin=2021&q1=gravesend | url-status=live }}</ref>—is now considered to be part of the [[Kensington, Brooklyn|Kensington]] section.) A brother, Eugene, born in 1917, suffered from mental illness,<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/books/bernard-malamuds-daughter-finally-tells-his-secrets.html|title = Bernard Malamud's Daughter Finally Tells His Secrets|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 9 March 2006|last1 = Smith|first1 = Dinitia|access-date = 10 August 2020|archive-date = 10 February 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210210224706/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/books/bernard-malamuds-daughter-finally-tells-his-secrets.html|url-status = live}}</ref> lived a hard and lonely life and died in his fifties. Bertha Malamud was "emotionally unstable" and attempted suicide by swallowing disinfectant in 1927; although her elder son discovered her in time, she died in a mental hospital two years later.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bookforum.com/print/1405/a-biography-of-bernard-malamud-draws-heavily-on-his-archives-2063 | title=A New Life | access-date=2024-02-08 | archive-date=2023-06-27 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627043717/https://www.bookforum.com/print/1405/a-biography-of-bernard-malamud-draws-heavily-on-his-archives-2063 | url-status=live }}</ref> Malamud entered adolescence at the start of the [[Great Depression]], graduating from central Flatbush's storied [[Erasmus Hall High School]] in 1932.<ref>Boyer, David. "[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EED8143AF932A25750C0A9679C8B63 NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: FLATBUSH; Grads Hail Erasmus as It Enters a Fourth Century] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523232437/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/11/nyregion/neighborhood-report-flatbush-grads-hail-erasmus-as-it-enters-a-fourth-century.html |date=2013-05-23 }}", ''[[The New York Times]]'', March 11, 2001. Retrieved 2007-12-01.</ref> During his youth, he saw many films and enjoyed relating their plots to his school friends. He was especially fond of [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s comedies. He received his [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] degree from the [[City College of New York]] in 1936. Thereafter, Malamud worked for a year at $4.50 a day ({{inflation|US|4.5|1936|fmt=eq}}) as a student teacher; however, he twice failed an examination that would enable him to become a permanent [[substitute teacher]] in the New York City public school system. Momentarily funded by a government loan, he completed the coursework for a [[master's degree]] in English at [[Columbia University]] in 1937-38; although he felt it was "close to a waste of time", he eventually received the degree after submitting a thesis on [[Thomas Hardy]] in 1942. From 1939-40, he was a temporary substitute teacher at [[Lafayette High School (New York City)|Lafayette High School]] in the [[Bath Beach]] section of Brooklyn. He was excused from [[World War II]]-era military service because he was the sole support of his father, who had remarried to Liza Merov in 1932. While working in a temporary capacity for the [[Bureau of the Census]] in [[Washington D.C.]], he contributed sketches to ''[[The Washington Post]]'', marking some of his first published works. Returning to New York after the job ended, he taught English at Erasmus Hall (in its adult-oriented evening session) for nine years while focusing on writing during the day. Toward the end of this period, he also worked at the similarly oriented [[Chelsea, Manhattan|Chelsea]] Vocational High School (where he taught in the day program to supplement his income) and [[Harlem, Manhattan|Harlem]] Evening High School.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cd0REAAAQBAJ&dq=bernard+malamud+flatbush&pg=PT162 | isbn=978-1-61902-200-3 | title=My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud | date=February 2013 | publisher=Catapult | access-date=2024-02-11 | archive-date=2024-04-12 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240412180951/https://books.google.com/books?id=cd0REAAAQBAJ&dq=bernard+malamud+flatbush&pg=PT162#v=onepage&q=bernard%20malamud%20flatbush&f=false | url-status=live }}</ref> Starting in 1949, Malamud taught four sections of freshman composition each semester at [[Oregon State University]], an experience fictionalized in his 1961 novel ''[[A New Life (novel)|A New Life]]''. Because he lacked a [[PhD]], he was not allowed to teach literature courses, and for a number of years, his rank was that of instructor; nevertheless, he was promoted to [[assistant professor]] in 1954 and became a tenured [[associate professor]] in 1958. While at OSU, Malamud devoted three days out of every week to his writing, and gradually emerged as a major American author. In 1961, he left OSU to teach creative writing at [[Bennington College]], a position he held until retirement. He was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1967. In 1942, Malamud met Ann De Chiara (November 1, 1917 – March 20, 2007), an Italian American [[Roman Catholic]], and a 1939 [[Cornell University]] graduate. Despite the opposition of their parents (prompting their relocation from Brooklyn to [[Greenwich Village]]), they married on November 6, 1945. Ann typed his manuscripts and reviewed his writing. They had two children, Paul (b. 1947) and [[Janna Malamud Smith|Janna]] (b. 1952). Janna is the author of a memoir about her father, titled ''My Father Is A Book''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/obituaries/22malamud.html|title=Ann DeChiara Malamud, Helpmate to Writer, 89, Dies|newspaper=The New York Times|date=22 March 2007|access-date=12 January 2021|archive-date=14 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114050620/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/obituaries/22malamud.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Malamud was Jewish, an [[Agnosticism|agnostic]], and a [[Humanism|humanist]].<ref>{{cite book|title=American Immigration Aesthetics: Bernard Malamud and Bharati Mukherjee As Immigrants|year=2011|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=978-1-4567-8243-6|author=Markose Abraham|page=146|quote=An agnostic humanist, Malamud has unflinching faith in man's ability to choose and make 'his own world' from the 'usable past'.}}</ref> He died in [[Manhattan]] (where he had maintained a winter residence at the [[Upper West Side]]'s [[Lincoln Towers]] since 1972) on March 18, 1986, at the age of 71.<ref>{{cite news|title= Bernard Malamud Dies at 71|author= Rothstein, Mervyn|newspaper= The New York Times|date= March 19, 1986|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/19/books/malamud-obit.html|format= obituary|access-date= 2010-07-30|archive-date= 2017-12-22|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171222105953/http://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/19/books/malamud-obit.html|url-status= live}}</ref> He is buried in [[Mount Auburn Cemetery]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. In his writing, Malamud depicts an honest picture of the despair and difficulties of the immigrants to America, and their hope of reaching their dreams despite their poverty.
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