American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow

Photo: Saul Bellow, circa 1980

Credit: Courtesy of Private Family Archive

Explore the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner’s impact on American literature in the first-ever major documentary on the writer.

American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow, premiering Monday, December 12, 2022 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV  illuminates how Bellow transformed modern literature and navigated through the issues of his time, including race, gender, and the Jewish immigrant experience, through rare archival footage and interviews with Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie and many others. The film traces Bellow's rise to eminence and examines his many identities: reluctant public intellectual, “serial husband,” father, Chicagoan and Jewish American. It also sheds light on his willingness to confront social issues, his criticisms of American society and materialism and his provocative political view.

Now in its 36th season on PBS, American Masters illuminates the lives and creative journeys of our nation’s most enduring artistic giants—those who have left an indelible impression on our cultural landscape—through compelling, unvarnished stories.