Alvin Schwartz

Alvin Schwartz (born ~1916) is an North American novelist, poet, and essayist.

His first novel The Blowtop has been called the first American existentialist novel, as well as the first of the Beat novels.

He lived by writing the Superman and Batman newspaper strips for many years. He also created the wildly popular Bizarro.

In 1968, he moved to Canada, where he wrote many documentaries for the Canadian National Film Board.

In the 1980s, he wrote a metaphysical autobiography, An Unlikely Prophet.

Currently, Schwartz writes a weekly web column while continuing work on a new long novel. The new novel presages the accumulating power of the European Union from the day the Berlin Wall collapsed.

He lives with his wife in the rural village of Chesterville, about 40 kilometers se of Ottawa.