Irving Malin

Irving Malin(March 18, 1934 – December 3, 2014) was an American literary critic.Malin attendedThomas Jefferson High SchoolandJamaica High Schooland graduated magna cum laude fromQueens Collegein 1955 and received his PhD fromStanford Universityin 1958. He married Ruth Lief in 1955 and they remained married until his death.He taught at theCity College of New Yorkfrom 1960 until his retirement in 1996. Malin did his dissertation on the fiction ofWilliam Faulknerand made his initial academic mark as a critic of American Jewish Literature, editing an early collection on the fiction ofSaul Bellowas well as a critical book and a general anthology on Jewish literature in the US. He subsequently became interested in writers who practiced innovative techniques such asJames PurdyandJohn Hawkesas well as writers who broke down the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction such asWilliam StyronandTruman Capote.One of the pioneering academics to take an interest in metafiction and experimental writing, Malin was an early contributor to theReview of Contemporary Fiction,writing over five hundred book reviews for this and other publications (like theHollins Critic). In the latter portion of his career, Malin edited many anthologies of essays, including books onHenry James,Thomas Pynchon,William Goyen,George Garrett,Don DeLillo,Vladimir Nabokov,Leslie Fiedler,andWilliam Gass.He was a fellow atYaddoand theHuntington Libraryand served on many boards and award panels.Malin died December 3, 2014.

Books

• William Faulkner: An Interpretation.Stanford University Press,1957
• New American Gothic.Southern Illinois University Press,1962
• Jews and Americans.Southern Illinois University Press, 1965
• Psychoanalysis and American Fiction.Dutton, 1965
• Saul Bellow and the Critics.New York University Press,1967
• Saul Bellow's Fiction.Southern Illinois University Press, 1969
• Nathanael West's Novels.Southern Illinois University Press, 1972