Solitude and Hope: Y'all Come Visit!

"Everyone needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door." Saul Bellow (1915-2005), Professor Emeritus in the prestigious Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, died on Tuesday, April 5th, 2005, at the age of 89. He was a Nobel Laureate in literature and one of the most influential American novelists of the 20th Century.

As a member of the University of Chicago faculty for more than 30 years, Bellow centered his fictional universe in his hometown of Chicago. Bellow, the Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of English at Chicago, authored more than a dozen critically acclaimed novels and works of nonfiction, including The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Humboldt's Gift and Mr. Sammler's Planet.

One of the most honored American writers of the modern era, Bellow won the 1976 Nobel Prize for literature, a Pulitzer Prize, three National Book Awards amd a Presidential Medal.

Bellow taught at the University of Chicago from 1962 to 1993 and attended the University's College in the 1930's. For countless numbers of readers, his works were extremely moving and reminded all of us of what deep powers that eminently introspective fiction can have.