This volume presents between the covers of a single book the range and scope of one of the most distinguished writers in America, Bernard Malamud. A Malamud Reader contains the complete text of The Assistant, his novel of love and redemption in Brooklyn; ten stories from The Magic Barrel and Idiots First; three journeys--to Chicago, from The Natural; to the coast, from A New Life; and to Kiev, from The Fixer--and two long selections, "S. Levin in Love" and "Yakov Bok in Prison."

Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) also wrote eight novels, he won the Pulitzer Prize and a second National Book award for The Fixer. Born in Brooklyn, he taught for many years at Bennington College in Vermont.