Saul Bellow is recognized as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century. The youngest of four children, Bellow was born in 1915 to Russian immigrant parents in Lachine, Quebec, Canada, a suburb of Montreal. Bellow's father, Abraham, had come to Canada from Russia just two years before his youngest child was born. While living in Montreal, Bellow learned English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and French. He lived with his family in Montreal's Jewish ghetto until the family moved to Chicago when he was nine.

Bellow spent a great deal of time in libraries as a child, as he loved to read. His family struggled with financial difficulties during his youth. His father wanted Bellow to go into a lucrative profession such as law or medicine, and his mother wanted him to become a scholar of Jewish law and tradition. Instead, Bellow chose to study anthropology...