伯纳德•马拉默德（1914-1986）

马拉默德出生于布鲁克林，毕业于纽约市立大学及哥伦比亚大学。他先在俄勒冈州立大学任教，1961年加入本宁顿大学任教。由于缺乏学历，他不能教授文学，并且只能长期担任讲师。但他却是二十世纪最伟大的文学家之一，在欧美及世界文学界享有很高的声望。他描写短篇，堪比契诃夫、巴别尔；他写犹太人，直逼索尔•贝娄；他揭发荒谬，不下奥威尔、索尔仁尼琴。他的作品大多反映底层犹太人的困苦生活，描摹他们的喜乐悲欢和强韧性格；其风格幽默而含蓄，色彩浓重而明朗，笔端饱含着同情小人物的悲悯精神。他几乎囊括所有美国最要的文学奖，是两度美国国家图书奖，以及普利策文学奖和欧•亨利短篇小说奖的得主。他的重要作品有短篇小说集《魔桶》（The Magic Barrel,1959年美国国家图书奖）、《修配工》（1967年美国国家图书奖、普利策文学奖）以及《抽屉里的男人》（The Man in the Drawer,1969年欧•亨利短篇小说奖）。

A classic that won Malamud both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award "The Fixer" (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel -- one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel. Set in Kiev in 1911 during a period of heightened anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal murder of a young Russian boy. Bok leaves his village to try his luck in Kiev, and after denying his Jewish identity, finds himself working for a member of the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds Society. When the boy is found nearly drained of blood in a cave, the Black Hundreds accuse the Jews of ritual murder. Arrested and imprisoned, Bok refuses to confess to a crime that he did not commit.