Fecha de nacimiento: 26. Abril 1914
Fecha de muerte: 18. Marzo 1986
Otros nombres:ბერნარდ მალამუდი,برنارد مالامود
Bernard Malamud fue un escritor estadounidense, considerado uno de los principales exponentes de la literatura judía de Norteamérica. Autor de siete novelas, entre las que destacan El mejor , El dependiente y El reparador . Sus cuentos fueron recopilados en El barril mágico , Idiotas primero , Imágenes de Fidelman y El sombrero de Rembrandt .
— Bernard Malamud
"The Man in the Drawer", in Rembrandt's Hat (1973); cited from Selected Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) p. 225
— Bernard Malamud
Context: I have written almost all my life. My writing has drawn, out of a reluctant soul, a measure of astonishment at the nature of life. And the more I wrote well, the better I felt I had to write.
In writing I had to say what had happened to me, yet present it as though it had been magically revealed. I began to write seriously when I had taught myself the discipline necessary to achieve what I wanted. When I touched that time, my words announced themselves to me. I have given my life to writing without regret, except when I consider what in my work I might have done better. I wanted my writing to be as good as it must be, and on the whole I think it is. I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times — once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say.
Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one's fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing: The men and things of today are wont to lie fairer and truer in tomorrow's meadow, Henry Thoreau said.
I don't regret the years I put into my work. Perhaps I regret the fact that I was not two men, one who could live a full life apart from writing; and one who lived in art, exploring all he had to experience and know how to make his work right; yet not regretting that he had put his life into the art of perfecting the work.
Address at Bennington College (30 October 1984) as published in "Reflections of a Writer: Long Work, Short Life" in The New York Times (20 March 1988)
— Bernard Malamud
Context: If I may, I would at this point urge young writers not to be too much concerned with the vagaries of the marketplace. Not everyone can make a first-rate living as a writer, but a writer who is serious and responsible about his work, and life, will probably find a way to earn a decent living, if he or she writes well. A good writer will be strengthened by his good writing at a time, let us say, of the resurgence of ignorance in our culture. I think I have been saying that the writer must never compromise with what is best in him in a world defined as free.
[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/reviews/malamud-reflections.html Address at Bennington College (30 October 1984)] as published in "Reflections of a Writer: Long Work, Short Life" in The New York Times (20 March 1988); also in Talking Horse : Bernard Malamud on Life and Work (1996) edited by Alan Cheuse and Nicholas Delbanco, p. 35
— Bernard Malamud
Context: I have written almost all my life. My writing has drawn, out of a reluctant soul, a measure of astonishment at the nature of life. And the more I wrote well, the better I felt I had to write.
In writing I had to say what had happened to me, yet present it as though it had been magically revealed. I began to write seriously when I had taught myself the discipline necessary to achieve what I wanted. When I touched that time, my words announced themselves to me. I have given my life to writing without regret, except when I consider what in my work I might have done better. I wanted my writing to be as good as it must be, and on the whole I think it is. I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times — once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say.
Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one's fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing: The men and things of today are wont to lie fairer and truer in tomorrow's meadow, Henry Thoreau said.
I don't regret the years I put into my work. Perhaps I regret the fact that I was not two men, one who could live a full life apart from writing; and one who lived in art, exploring all he had to experience and know how to make his work right; yet not regretting that he had put his life into the art of perfecting the work.
Address at Bennington College (30 October 1984) as published in "Reflections of a Writer: Long Work, Short Life" in The New York Times (20 March 1988)
— Bernard Malamud
Context: If I may, I would at this point urge young writers not to be too much concerned with the vagaries of the marketplace. Not everyone can make a first-rate living as a writer, but a writer who is serious and responsible about his work, and life, will probably find a way to earn a decent living, if he or she writes well. A good writer will be strengthened by his good writing at a time, let us say, of the resurgence of ignorance in our culture. I think I have been saying that the writer must never compromise with what is best in him in a world defined as free.
[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/reviews/malamud-reflections.html Address at Bennington College (30 October 1984)] as published in "Reflections of a Writer: Long Work, Short Life" in The New York Times (20 March 1988); also in Talking Horse : Bernard Malamud on Life and Work (1996) edited by Alan Cheuse and Nicholas Delbanco, p. 35
— Bernard Malamud, The Natural
The Natural (1952)<!-- New York: Harcourt, Brace // Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003-->, p. 152
— Bernard Malamud
The Natural (1952) [http://books.google.com/books?id=wCWhegoGUxwC&q=%22Without+heroes+we're+all+plain+people+and+don't+know+how+far+we+can+go%22&pg=PA148#v=onepage p. 154]
— Bernard Malamud
The Natural (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) p. [http://books.google.com/books?id=wCWhegoGUxwC&q=%22I+don't+think+you+can+do+anything+for+anyone+without+giving+up+something+of+your+own%22&pg=PA149#v=onepage 149]. (originally published 1952)
— Bernard Malamud
Dubin's Lives (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979) p. 27
— Bernard Malamud
"Life is Better than Death", in Idiots First (1963)<!-- repr. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964 -->, p. 85
— Bernard Malamud
On how Dubin’s Lives resulted from a lifetime of reading biographies, W (16 February 1979)
— Bernard Malamud
New York Times (29 January 1979)
— Bernard Malamud
"Black is My Favorite Color", in Idiots First (1963)<!-- repr. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964 -->, p. 29
