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Martin Amis, Zachary Leader and Sarah Churchwell join Matthew Sweet to discuss Saul Bellow and his masterpiece, Herzog with readings by Kerry Shale.

Born exactly one hundred years ago on June 10th 1915 in Quebec, Bellow spent most of his life in Chicago and it formed the backdrop for many of his novels. In 1976 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Herzog depicts the mid life crisis of a Jewish academic whose mind begins to unravel when his wife leaves him for his best friend. His rage drives him to write a series of letters to friends, family and the famous in a bid to understand his predicament. They are never sent but they colour the book's emotional landscape. Herzog was nominated as one of the 100 best novels in the English language by TIME magazine.