American · 1909–1981
Nelson Algren wrote about Chicago's underclass with unsentimental compassion. "The Man with the Golden Arm" (1949) won the first National Book Award—a novel about a card dealer and heroin addict named Frankie Machine. Algren's Chicago was poolrooms and flophouses, junkies and grifters, people the respectable world walked past. He had a long affair with Simone de Beauvoir. His reputation has risen since his death; his city has not forgotten him.