American Masters, The Adventures of Saul Bellow

PBS WESTERN RESERVE (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):

Monday, Dec. 12, at 8 PM

Tuesday, Dec. 13, at 1 AM

FUSION (WNEO 45.2 / WEAO 49.2):

Saturday, Dec. 17, at 1 PM 

Explore the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner’s impact on American literature. This biography illuminates how Saul Bellow transformed modern literature and navigated through the issues of his time, including race, gender and the Jewish immigrant experience, through rare archival footage and interviews with Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie and many others. 

The film traces Bellow’s rise to eminence and examines his many identities: reluctant public intellectual, “serial husband,” father, Chicagoan and Jewish American. It also sheds light on his willingness to confront social issues, his criticisms of American society and materialism and his provocative political views.