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The Dean's December

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The Dean's December
First edition cover
AuthorSaul Bellow
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarper & Row
Publication date
1982
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Preceded byHumboldt's Gift 
Followed byMore Die of Heartbreak 

The Dean's December is a 1982 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. The first novel Bellow published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, it is set in Chicago and Bucharest. The book's main character, Albert Corde, a meditative academic who faces a crisis, accompanies his Romanian-born astrophysicist wife to her Communist-ruled native country, where they deal with the death of his mother-in-law. This sojourn allows Corde to observe the workings of a totalitarian regime in particular and the Eastern Bloc in general, a perspective which provides him with insight into the human condition.