Shaw, Irwin

Shaw, Irwin 

Born Feb. 27, 1913, in New York City. American writer.

Shaw graduated from Brooklyn College in 1934. His first play, Bury the Dead (1936), is notable for its sharp antiwar leanings. The play The Gentle People: A Brooklyn Fable (1939; Russian translation, 1965) sounded a warning to America about violence and gangsterism. Shaw’s novel The Young Lions (1948; Russian translation, 1962) is among the best works about World War II; scenes of fascist barbarism alternate with realistic sketches of tyranny and discrimination in the US Army. In his sharply social novels, Shaw emphasizes the problem of preserving moral values and dwells on the spiritual strivings of the heroes (The Troubled Air, 1950; Evening in Byzantium, 1973; Russian translation, 1975). Shaw has also written collections of short stories, the publicist work In the Company of Dolphins (1964), and screenplays.

WORKS

Lucy Crown. New York, 1956.
Two Weeks in Another Town. New York, 1959.
Love on a Dark Street. New York, 1965.
Nightwork. London, 1975.
In Russian translation:
Solnechnye berega reki Lety. [Moscow, 1969.]

REFERENCE

Mersand, J. Traditions in American Literature. Port Washington, N.Y., 1968.