Bernard Malamud was born on April 26, 1914 and raised in Brooklyn, New York.  He was the older of two sons of Jewish Russian immigrants.  His father worked for 16 hours a day as a grocer.   His mother died when she was still young and his only brother lived a difficult life and died in his fifties.  Bernard went to school at Erasmus Hall High School in and Malamud graduated from the City College of New York with a B.A. in 1936.  He worked in a factory, several stores, and as a clerk during the next few years while writing in his spare time. In 1940, he worked at Erasmus Hall High School teaching an evening class.  At the same time, he earned an M.A. from Colombia University.  During the next 7 years, Malamud taught at high schools in New York until 1949, when he began...