For over forty years, Saul Bellow has been writing fiction that denounces the destructive forces that have dominated the literature of this century―existential nihilism and historicist pessimism. In novel after novel―The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Humbolt's Gift, Mr. Sammler's Planet, and others―he has tried to restore the integrity of the private life, the value of human feeling, and the primacy of social contract, while proclaiming each individual's perennial access to age-old truths.

In this collection of interviews spanning the period from 1953 to 1991, Bellow elaborates further upon his fictional treatment of these ideas. Here the reader finds the wit and urbane commentary that typify this marvelous writer. He speaks with his interviewers of the changing role of fiction, the literary establishment, and the place of literature in modern life. Since no definitive biography of Bellow has yet been written, these interviews provide valuable insights into the writer that many argue to be the pre-eminent American novelist of the post-World War II era.

Gloria L. Cronin, a professor of English at Brigham Young University, is author of A Room of His Own: In Search of the Feminine in the Novels of Saul Bellow and Small Planets: Saul Bellow and the Art of Short Fiction and coeditor (with Ben Siegel) of Conversations with Saul Bellow and Conversations with Robert Penn Warren, the latter two published by University Press of Mississippi. Ben Siegel (1925–2010) was professor of English at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. He is coauthor (with Joseph Gaer) of The Puritan Heritage: America’s Roots in the Bible and coeditor (with Jackson R. Bryer) of Conversations with Neil Simon and (with Gloria L. Cronin) of Conversations with Robert Penn Warren and Conversations with Saul Bellow, the latter three published by University Press of Mississippi.