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The Actual

A Novella

Author Saul Bellow

Introduction by Joseph O'Neill

Paperback

$17.00 US

Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics

5.1"W x 7.7"H x 0.3"D | 3 oz | 148 per carton

On sale Oct 21, 2009 | 96 Pages | 9780143105848

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“The work of a great master still locked in unequal combat with Eros and Time.” –The New York Times Book Review

A Penguin Classic

In this dazzling work of fiction, Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow writes comically and wisely about the tenacious claims of first love. Harry Trellman, an aging, astute businessman, has never belonged anywhere and is as awkward in his human attachments as he is gifted in observing the people around him. But Harry's observational talents have not gone unnoticed by "trillionaire" Sigmund Adletsky, who retains Harry as his advisor. Soon the old man discovers Harry's intense forty-year passion for a twice-divorced interior designer, Amy Wustrin. At the exhumation and reburial of her husband, Harry is provided, thanks to Sigmund, perhaps the final means for disclosing feelings amassed over a lifetime. Written late in Bellow's career, The Actual is a maestro's dissection of the affairs of the heart.

This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction by Joseph O'Neill.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Saul Bellow was born of Russian Jewish parents in Lachine, Quebec, in 1915, and was raised in Chicago. He received his bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1937. His novel The Adventures of Augie March won the National Book Award for fiction in 1954. His further awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt's Gift (1975); the International Literary Prize for Herzog, for which he became the first American recipient; and the Croix de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, the highest literary distinction awarded by France to non-citizens. In 1976, Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. View titles by Saul Bellow

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By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

"A mature distillation of Mr. Bellow's work . . . a gem."
-The New York Times

" The work of a great master still locked in unequal combat with Eros and Time."
-The New York Times Book Review

" [A] wonderful book . . . fully worthy of a place in its author's vastly esteemed oeuvre."
-Chicago Tribune

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