Malamud, Bernard (1914–1986)

US novelist and short-story writer. He first attracted attention with The Natural (1952), a mythic story about a baseball hero. It established Malamud's central concern of moral redemption and transcendence, which was more typically dealt with in books set in Jewish immigrant communities. These drew on the magical elements and mores of the European Yiddish tradition and include such novels as, The Assistant (1957), The Fixer (1966), Dubin's Lives (1979), and God's Grace (1982).

Short story collections include The Magic Barrel 1958, Rembrandt's Hat 1973, and The Stories of Bernard Malamud 1983.