"The Adventures of Augie March" set the stage for Bellow's Nobel Prize Award in 1976 and established him as a crucial voice that demanded to be heard. Fifty years later, it remains the best loved of Bellow's works as new readers discover this vital, truly American masterpiece.

SAUL BELLOW (1915-2005) is the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, for The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and Mr. Sammler's Planet. He was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Humboldt's Gift in 1975, and in 1976 received the Nobel Prize for Literature "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work."