“FOR MAKING MY STAY IN ISRAEL SO PLEASURABLE…”: FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, OF THE FIXER, INSCRIBED BY MALAMUD

MALAMUD, Bernard. The Fixer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. Octavo, original tan cloth, original dust jacket. $1750.

First edition, presentation copy, of Malamud’s Pulitzer-winning novel, inscribed by Malamud: "For Josef, A patient and attentive host—for making my stay in Israel so pleasurable—Bernard."

"Malamud's story of a Jew falsely accused of murder in czarist Russia in 1912 ends with the declaration that there is 'no such thing as an unpolitical man.' Taken as commentary on the Civil Rights Movement, the book achieves popular as well as critical success and would be made into a 1968 film after winning both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize" (Chronology of American Literature). "The language at once sears and sings. The process of continuous genocide which we call history finds in this novel both a challenge and a response" (Vinson, 877). Laid-in Hebrew newspaper clipping from Malamud's trip to Israel.

Book near-fine, with mild toning to preliminary and concluding pages and slight soiling to cloth. Dust jacket extremely good, with a bit of soiling, light rubbing to extremities, and tape repair to verso. A desirable inscribed copy.