Never Come Morning

“Never Come Morning depicts the intensity of feeling, the tawdry but potent dreams, the crude but forceful poetry, and the frustrated longing for human dignity residing in the lives of the Poles of Chicago’s Northwest Side, and this revelation informs us all that there lies an ocean of life at our doorstep-an unharnessed, unchanneled and unknown ocean …” -Richard Wright”It is an unusual and brilliant book … a bold scribbling upon the wall for comfortable Americans to ponder and digest.” -New York Times”If the world of Never Come Morning is tawdry and brutal, Algren’s language has a lyrical impulse that humanizes and uplifts… . Algren’s passionate belief that the disenfranchised and their lives matter, and should matter, never translates into sentimentality or righteous hectoring. Clear-eyed compassion, respect for fact and a fiery imagination that’s fueled by empathy for the suffering of others make his work powerful, enduring and unique. Never Come Morning is inspiring.” -Irini Spanidou”One of the most important American novels that I have read …” -James T. Farrell”Like a flare of light, it illumines … but in human terms. Never Come Morning towers head and shoulders over most novels.” -Benjamin Appel, Saturday Review”The best book to come out of Chicago.” -Ernest hemingway

Nelson Algren, born March 28, 1909, in Detroit, was an American writer who spent most of his life in Chicago. He is remembered for his sharp prose and his focus on the marginalized in society.

Algren’s first short fiction appeared in Story magazine in 1933, followed by his debut novel, Somebody in Boots, in 1935. His second novel, Never Come Morning, completed in early 1942, was widely praised and eventually sold over a million copies, with a French edition translated by Jean-Paul Sartre.

His 1947 collection of short stories, The Neon Wilderness, solidified his reputation. The Man with the Golden Arm (1949), considered his most significant novel, won the inaugural National Book Award for Fiction in 1950. Other notable works include Chicago: City on the Make (1951), a prose poem, and A Walk on the Wild Side (1956). Algren also penned two travel books, Who Lost an American? and Notes from a Sea Voyage, and a collection of fiction and nonfiction, The Last Carousel (1973).

Posthumously published works include his final novel, The Devil’s Stocking (1983), and the essay collection Nonconformity: Writing on Writing (1996). In 2009, Entrapment and Other Writings brought forth a collection of previously unpublished material. In recent years, his work has continued to reach new audiences through audiobook releases and a performance film.

Nelson Algren died on May 9, 1981, shortly after being appointed a fellow of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

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