PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The estate of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author’s son has awarded Oregon State University with $850,000 for its writing program.
The university announced the major gift from Paul Malamud’s estate on Monday morning. Paul, who died in 2022, is the son of Bernard Malamud, who died in 1986.
According to the university, Bernard sought teaching positions from about 200 colleges in the late 1940s and only received two offers — one from OSU.
He taught at the university from 1949 to 1961, an experience that inspired his 1961 work “A New Life.”
The author is best known for his novels “The Magic Barrel” and “The Fixer,” which won National Book Awards in 1959 and 1967. The latter earned him a Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category.
Malamud’s 1952 novel “The Natural” also inspired the baseball film of the same name, starring Robert Redford.
According to OSU, the $850,000 gift from Malamud’s son’s estate “establishes the first endowed faculty position fund in the School of Writing, Literature and Film in the OSU College of Liberal Arts, adds to an existing scholarship and creates a visiting writer endowment.”
School of Writing, Literature and Film Director Tim Jensen said the award is the best way to honor Malamud’s legacy.
“As a faculty member, Malamud helped lay the foundation for our excellent programs; today, our MFA in creative writing is among the most distinguished graduate programs at the university, our majors in literature and creative writing are growing, and we offer superb courses in rhetoric and composition,” Jensen added in a statement.
