Robert Nathan (Robert Gruntal Nathan) Biography

American novelist and screenwriter, born in New York. Most of his books were satirical fantasies, including his most famous, Portrait of Jennie (1940), which was based on the time theories of J. W. Dunne. Few of his many works are novels of action, and Nathan was never a popular creator of commercial fantasies. Writing in delicate prose, Nathan tended to fabricate worlds which were resonant with loss, such as in The Puppet Master (1923). Other works include The Road of Ages (1935), which prophetically describes a new Jewish diaspora; and The Weans (1960), which takes the form of an archaeological report written in the distant future, and gently satirizes contemporary America.