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Bel Kaufman

Author profile

born

May 10, 1911 in Berlin, Germany

gender

female

genre

Literature & Fiction

About this author

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Bel Kaufman is a Russian-American professor and author, best known for her 1965 best-seller, Up the Down Staircase. The semi-autobiographical novel is about an idealistic young honors college graduate who becomes an English teacher, hoping to share her love of classic literature (especially Chaucer) and writing with her students. However, her idealism is quickly snuffed out by the gritty realities of her colleagues and students who populate the novel's fictional inner-city high school.
Though she has written few fictional novels since Up the Down Staircase, she has continued as a teacher and lecturer. Kaufman is an honorary chairman of the Yiddish Studies faculty at Columbia University.

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Books by Bel Kaufman

Average rating: 3.78 · 1,785 ratings · 155 reviews · 4 distinct works

	Up the Down Staircase 3.79 avg rating — 1,768 ratings — published 1964 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Love, Etc. 2.88 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1979 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Up the Down Staircase by Christopher Sergel (Adaptor), Bel Kaufman 3.17 avg rating — 6 ratings	My rating:
	Odessa Memories by Patricia Herlihy, Nicolas V. Iljine (Editor), Bel Kaufman 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2004	My rating:

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