Nelson Algren
| Nelson Algren | |
|---|---|
Nelson Algren, 1956
|
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| Born |
March 28, 1909 Detroit, Michigan, US |
| Died | May 9, 1981 (aged 72) Long Island, New York |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Novel, short story |
| Notable awards |
National Book Award 1950 |
| Spouse | Amanda Kontowicz (m. 1937; divorced) Betty Ann Jones (1965-1967; divorced) |
Nelson Algren (March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. He may be best known for The Man with the Golden Arm, a 1949 novel that won the National Book Award and was adapted as a 1955 film of the same name.
According to Harold Augenbraum, "in the late 1940s and early 1950s he was one of the best known literary writers in America." The lover of French writer Simone de Beauvoir, he was featured in her novel The Mandarins, set in Paris and Chicago.
He is considered "a bard of the down-and-outer", based on this book and his novel A Walk on the Wild Side (1956). The latter was adapted as a play of the same name, produced on Broadway.
Algren was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Goldie (née Kalisher) and Gerson Abraham. At the age of three, he moved with his parents to Chicago, Illinois, where they lived in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side. His father was the son of a Swedish convert to Judaism, and his mother was of German Jewish descent. (She owned a candy store on the South Side.) When he was young, Algren's family lived at 7139 S. South Park Avenue (now S. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) in the Greater Grand Crossing section of the South Side.
When he was eight, his family moved from the far South Side to an apartment at 4834 N. Troy Street, in the North Side neighborhood of Albany Park. His father worked as an auto mechanic nearby on North Kedzie Avenue.
In his essay Chicago: City on the Make, Algren added autobiographical details: he recalled being teased by neighborhood children after moving to Troy Street because he was a fan of the South Side White Sox. They were fans of the North Side Chicago Cubs. This teasing increased when White Sox players were implicated in the 1920 Black Sox Scandal. Despite living most of his life on the North Side, Algren never changed his affiliation and remained a White Sox fan.
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