Algren << AWL grihn >>, Nelson (1909-1981), an American author, is best known for fiction describing the brutal life of the Chicago slums of the 1930’s and 1940’s. His characters are constantly defeated by their sordid environment, but the reader sympathizes with their yearning for love and dignity.
Algren’s most moving and artistic novel is The Man with the Golden Arm (1949). It records the unsuccessful struggle of the central character, Frankie Machine, against gambling, drug addiction, and his neurotic wife. Algren’s novel A Walk on the Wild Side (1956) has a robust comic quality. Algren also wrote a collection of stories, The Neon Wilderness (1947), and a book of stories and nonfiction pieces called The Last Carousel (1973).
Algren was born on March 28, 1909, in Detroit, but he lived most of his life in Chicago. He died on May 9, 1981.
