Bernard Wolfe (1915–1985) was an American writer whose diverse career spanned science fiction, journalism, and political biography. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Wolfe graduated from Yale University with a degree in psychology before embarking on a varied career that frequently intersected with major historical events of the mid-twentieth century.\n\nIn 1937, Wolfe traveled to Mexico, where he served as a secretary and bodyguard to the exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. This experience profoundly influenced his later writing, most notably his 1959 novel The Great Prince Died, which offered a fictionalized account of Trotsky's assassination. Following his time in Mexico, Wolfe worked in merchant shipping and as a journalist, eventually co-authoring the influential jazz memoir Really the Blues (1946) with musician Mezz Mezzrow.\n\nWolfe is perhaps best remembered in literary circles for his 1952 science fiction novel, Limbo. The novel is considered a pioneering work of cybernetic science fiction, exploring themes of voluntary amputation, cybernetic prosthetics, and the dystopian consequences of a society attempting to program away human violence. Throughout the rest of his career, Wolfe continued to write novels, short stories, and television scripts, maintaining a sharp, analytical focus on human behavior and political ideology until his death in Calabasas, California, in 1985.
