Blessed Is the Man

About the Book

Every reader will welcome Jake Krakauer, the chief figure in Louis Zara's highly readable first novel. He is kin to all immigrants who cleared a wilderness and expanded this republic. Here he burgeons with life and hope as he struggles to bring the world to his feet. Admiring him, the author pours out his dramatic success with gusto as well as with amused detachment.

His realistic characters inspired Mary McCarthy to hail his Blessed Is the Man as "One of the Nation's Notables of 1935." For Zara, that early recognition encouraged him to continue with novels like Give Us This Day, Some for the Glory, This Land Is Ours, and others that have won him national acclaim.

About the Author

Born in New York, Zara was raised and educated in Chicago. His prize short stories include The Citizener, which, for two generations, has appeared in anthologies. His This Land Is Ours won the Chicago Foundation for Literature award in 1940. Several of his later novels have been translated into Spanish, Dutch and Norwegian.