Shaw, Irwin

(US, 1913–84)

Born in New York and educated at Brooklyn College, Shaw was 23 when his play Bury the Dead was produced on Broadway. Begin with the impressive The Young Lions (1948), which follows three soldiers, two American and one German, through the Second World War. When they meet amid the desolation of a concentration camp, only one survives. The Troubled Air (1951) deals with anti-Communist hysteria in the post-war United States. A radio station is plunged into crisis when broadcasters are accused of being Communist sympathizers. The expansive evocation of American life from the 1940s to the 1960s in Rich Man, Poor Man (1970) is based on the contrasting careers of two brothers. The success of one and the rootlessness of the other result from differences of personality that symbolize diverging attitudes in American society.

Herman Wouk, James Agee, John Irving  DH