Edward Lewis Wallant

Edward Lewis Wallant (* October 19, 1926 in New Haven, Connecticut; † December 5, 1962 in New York City ) was an American writer.

Life

Wallant served in World War II in the Navy. After the end of his military service, he moved to New York, where he studied at the Pratt Institute and the New School for Social Research and worked in subsequent years as an art director in the advertising industry.

His literary career includes only the short time of his 30th birthday before his untimely death, in his lifetime, he published no more than two novels, The Human Season ( 1960) and The Pawnbroker ( 1961). For his first novel, he received in the Year of the Harry and Ethel Daroff Memorial Fiction Award; this literature prize was rededicated after Wallants death and is now called in his honor Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction.

Two other novels were published posthumously, namely The Tenants of Moon Bloom ( 1963; German: Mr Moon Bloom, Berlin 2012, A: Barbara damage) and The Children at the Gate (1964). Despite this little extensive work Wallant is in its meaning with other more familiar Jewish- American writers of the postwar generation, such as Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer compared. In a meeting of the Tenants of 16 August 1963, the reviewer of Time magazine draws parallels to the work of the also died early pioneer of postmodern American literature, Nathanael West.

Edward Lewis Wallant died at the age of 36 years to an aneurysm. Two years after his death, The Pawnbroker was filmed and directed by Sidney Lumet, Rod Steiger received for his portrayal of the main character Sol Nazerman 1965 Oscar nomination. The pawnbroker, as the German title reads, is considered the first American feature film that tries to depict the horrors of the Nazi death camps.

Works

• MoonBloom: novel. With a pref by Dave Eggers. From the English by Barbara damage. Berlin: Berlin -Verl. 2012