Saul Bellow, To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account

Gloria Cronin (Brigham Young University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1976

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)
- Essay Collection
- Guidebooks / Travel writing

Resources

To Jerusalem and Back (1976) was written during 1975, the year in which Bellow married mathematician Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea and spent three months in Israel with her while she taught at Hebrew University. During this year he read many articles and books on Israel and interviewed numerous Jewish government and cultural leaders. The book combines these firsthand accounts and provides a somewhat journalistic chronology of his stay, along with fictional stories, reported conversations, travelogue, bits of essays, and pieces of public addresses. It earned Bellow the label of “neoconservative” and a number of negative reviews. According to some critics he did not interview enough people involved in the arts, medicine, science,…

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210 words

Citation: Cronin, Gloria. "To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 October 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13828, accessed 27 November 2024.]

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