Description
Book SynopsisThe story of Jewish literature is a kaleidoscopic one, multilingual and transnational in character, spanning the globe as well as the centuries. In this broad, thought-provoking introduction to Jewish literature from 1492 to the present, cultural historian Ilan Stavans focuses on its multilingual and transnational nature. Stavans presents a wide range of traditions within Jewish literature and the variety of writers who made those traditions possible. Represented are writers as dissimilar as Luis de Carvajal the Younger, Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Isaac Babel, Anzia Yezierska, Elias Canetti, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Irving Howe, Clarice Lispector, Susan Sontag, Philip Roth, Grace Paley, Amos Oz, Moacyr Scliar, and David Grossman. The story of Jewish literature spans the globe as well as the centuries, from the marrano poets and memorialists of medieval Spain, to the sprawling Yiddish writing in Ashkenaz (the Pale of Settlement'' in Eastern Europe), to the probing narratives of Jewish immigrants to the United States and other parts of the New World. It also examines the accounts of horror during the Holocaust, the work of Israeli authors since the creation of the Jewish State in 1948, and the ingathering of Jewish works in Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina, and South Africa at the end of the twentieth century. This kaleidoscopic introduction to Jewish literature presents its subject matter as constantly changing and adapting.
Trade ReviewReading Jewish literature becomes a stimulating journey; Stavans jumps from one author to another without clinging to either time or space. * Tessa Calders i Artís, Escola de libreria *
Table of ContentsChapter One: People of the Book Chapter Two: After the Expulsion Chapter Three: The Age of Anxiety Chapter Four: Into the Abyss Chapter Five: Into the Mainstream Chapter Six: The Ingathering Chapter Seven: The Promised Land Chapter Eight: The Letterless Canon References Further Reading Index
