Description
Book SynopsisIdentifies the distinctive voice of Jewish American literature by recovering the multilingual Jewish culture that Jews brought to the United States in their creative encounter with English. This book traces the evolution of Yiddish and Hebrew in modern Jewish American prose writing through dialect and accent, and cross-cultural translations.
Trade ReviewRunner-Up for the 2006 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2007 "[An] invigorating book about the multilingual sensibility which Jews who emigrated to the United States brought to their grappling with English... This is not just a book about the Jewish American experience, but about how and why we all relate to language."--Samantha Ellis, Times Literary Supplement "No book traces the stories of Jewish sound, voice, tone, pun, metaphor, name, prayer, and sacred syllable with such consistency and brilliance."--Choice "Call It English is a deeply informed and provocative attempt to explain the uniqueness of Jewish American multilingualism, and as such, it should be required reading for anyone teaching a course on Jewish American literature."--Steven Fink, American Jewish History "Call It English ... [is an] important book for scholars of both American literatures and American Jewish literature, and ... [is] so especially at this particular point in history... [T]he ever-increasing passage of time that separates us from the events of the Holocaust and the inevitable if not deeply regrettable failures of memory make it all the more imperative that we bear witness to the past."--Contemporary Literature "Her work opens new doors for a reconsideration of the national and linguistic boundaries of American literature, long a literature of immigrants--immigrants who continue to bring their languages and literary traditions to bear on the history of American letters."--Dr. Allison Schachter, Pesach
Table of ContentsIllustrations ix Preface xi Chapter 1: Accent Marks: Writing and Pronouncing Jewish America 1 Pronouncing America, Writing Jewish: Abraham Cahan, Delmore Schwartz, Grace Paley, Bernard Malamud Chapter 2: "I like to shpeak plain, shee? Dot'sh a kin' a man I am!" 32 Speech, Dialect, and Realism: Abraham Cahan Chapter 3: "I learned at least to think in English without an accent" 52 Linguistic Passing: Mary Antin Chapter 4: "Christ it's a Kid!"--Chad Godya. 76 Jewish Writing and Modernism: Henry Roth Chapter 5: "Here I am!"--Hineni 100 Partial and Partisan Translations: Saul Bellow Chapter 6: "Aloud she uttered it."-- --Hashem 127 Pronouncing the Sacred: Cynthia Ozick Chapter 7: Sounding Letters 149 "And a river went out of Eden"--Philip Roth, Aryeh Lev Stollman "Magnified and Sanctified"--The Kaddish as First and Last Words Notes 177 Works Cited 203 Index 215
