New Releases by Isaac Bashevis Singer

A Max basta vederla, quella Rashka appena quindicenne, per rimanerne abbagliato. E dire che finora tutto filava liscio: lui e la sua bella Flora, moglie e amica, complice e amante, sono tornati a Varsavia per procurarsi della «merce» per la loro fabbrica di borsette – in realtà, carne fresca per il florido bordello che gestiscono a Buenos Aires. Appena arrivati, si sono immersi, come un tempo, nel mondo di via Krochmalna, cuore pulsante del ghetto di Varsavia, sorta di corte dei miracoli, dove, all’inizio del Novecento, aleggia ancora un buon «odore di birra, mostarda, bagel caldi e pretzel» e trafficano i loro vecchi amici, gente come Meir Panna Acida, Leah Lingualunga, Itche il Guercio e Srulke il Tonto. Ma, come recita un antico detto yiddish, «dieci nemici non possono fare a un uomo il male che può fare a se stesso». E così sarà di Max Shpindler, un’altra delle indimenticabili figure della vasta commedia umana che Singer ha saputo mettere in scena: cinico e donnaiolo, in apparenza pienamente soddisfatto di sé e della propria ricchezza, pronto a finanziare un gruppo di anarchici se questo gli consente di far soldi, Max è in realtà tormentato da dubbi, e da domande a cui non trova risposta, e da tentazioni di morte – un tumulto che proprio l’incontro con l’irresistibile Rashka porterà con prepotenza alla luce. Dopo «Keyla la Rossa» e «Il ciarlatano», un terzo, strepitoso inedito del grande scrittore polacco.

From the Nobel Prize–winning writer, a new collection of literary and personal essays Old Truths and New Clichés collects nineteen essays—most of them previously unpublished in English—by Isaac Bashevis Singer on topics that were central to his artistic vision throughout an astonishing and prolific literary career spanning more than six decades. Expanding on themes reflected in his best-known work—including the literary arts, Yiddish and Jewish life, and mysticism and philosophy—the book illuminates in new ways the rich intellectual, aesthetic, religious, and biographical background of Singer’s singular achievement as the first Yiddish-language author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Like a modern Montaigne, Singer studied human nature and created a body of work that contributed to a deeper understanding of the human spirit. Much of his philosophical thought was funneled into his stories. Yet these essays, which Singer himself translated into English or oversaw the translation of, present his ideas in a new way, as universal reflections on the role of the artist in modern society. The unpublished essays featured here include “Old Truths and New Clichés,” “The Kabbalah and Modern Times,” and “A Trip to the Circus.” Old Truths and New Clichés brims with stunning archival finds that will make a significant impact on how readers understand Singer and his work. Singer’s critical essays have long been overlooked because he has been thought of almost exclusively as a storyteller. This book offers an important correction to the record by further establishing Singer as a formidable intellectual.

Originally published in Yiddish between 1953-1955 as a single work, Isaac Bashevis Singer''s The Manor and The Estate now appears as a single-volume English edition. Recounting the tales of Polish Jews in the second half of the nineteenth century - a time of rapid industrial growth and radical social change - the novel depicts the Jewish community moving from the ghetto to prominence within Polish society. As Singer writes in his author''s note, "All the spiritual and intellectual ideas that triumphed in the modern era had their roots in the world of that time - socialism and nationalism, Zionism and assimilationism, nihilism and anarchism, suffragettism, atheism, the weakening of the family bond, free love, and even the beginnings of Fascism." Telling the story of Calman Jacoby, who stands between the old and the new, the book portrays the difficulties encountered by traditional Jews coming to terms with the changes brought on by modernity.

Set in seventeenth-century Poland, The Slave tells the story of Jacob, a young Talmudic scholar sold into slavery after the Chmielnicki massacres - and who falls in love with his master''s daughter, Wanda. Even after he is ransomed, he finds he can''t live without her, and the two escape together to a distant Jewish community. Racked by his consciousness of sin in taking a wife who is not Jewish, and by the difficulties of concealing her identity, Jacob stands firm as the violence of the era threatens to destroy the ill-fated couple.

»Eine wunderbare, wunderbare Welt, diese schrecklich schöne Welt von Isaac Bashevis Singer!« Henry Miller »Es kam selten vor, dass eine Frau, die schon in drei Bordellen gearbeitet hatte, noch heiratete ... Es war ein Omen für alle Warschauer Huren, nicht die Hoffnung aufzugeben, ein Zeichen, dass die Liebe noch immer die Welt regierte.« Warschau 1911: Keila – die bereits mehrere Stationen in Bordellen hinter sich hat – findet in Jarmy, dem Ex-Häftling, ihre große Liebe. Das junge Ehepaar sehnt sich nach einem Leben außerhalb des jüdischen Gettos, in dem der Alltag von Armut und der Angst vor Pogromen geprägt ist. Dieser Traum scheint plötzlich zum Greifen nahe: Max, ein alter Bekannter, will in Amerika das große Geld machen – das Paar soll ihm dabei helfen. Keila soll junge Mädchen für die Bordelle in der Neuen Welt anwerben. Max selbst fühlt sich zu Jarmy hingezogen, dem er schon früher näherkam. Es entfaltet sich eine verhängnisvolle Dreiecksbeziehung. Da tritt der schüchterne und unerfahrene Bunem in ihr Leben, der sich auf ein Leben als Rabbiner vorbereitet. Für Keila, die er glühend verehrt, ist er bereit, mit allen Konventionen des Schtetls zu brechen. Werden die beiden in Amerika ihr Glück finden?

Una sofisticada historia sobre el sexo como obsesión. El mago de Lublin se ha coronado con el tiempo como la novela más importante de la literatura yiddish. Su protagonista, Yasha Mazur, un polaco medio judío y medio pagano, realiza actos de magia, acrobacia y escapismo a lo largo de la Polonia del este. Y mientras él va recorriendo los poblados, tendiendo entre la libertad y la amoralidad una simple soga que cruza cual equilibrista, su esposa, judía practicante, lo espera en casa sin creer en las habladurías que dan cuenta de la doble vida de Yasha. Pero no hay magia que resista el deterioro de la ilusión ni hombre al que no le toque la hora de luchar contra sí mismo. El mago de Lublin es un extraordinario relato sobre la eterna, y casi siempre sinuosa, búsqueda de la divinidad. "Hace cuarenta años elegí como inspirador a Knut Hamsun; si tuviese hoy que volver a empezar, tomaría como inspiración a Singer. Todo lo que hace es perfecto" Henry Miller

"Troldmanden fra Lublin" er en kunstnerroman om en overmodig og succesrig polsk jøde fra forrige århundrede, der gennem sine løgne mister sin udstråling og dermed sin magt over kvinder og sit publikum. Isaac Bashevis Singer var en polskfødt jødisk-amerikansk forfatter (1903-1991). I 1935 emigrerede han til USA, og hans værker er nok bedst kendt på engelsk, selvom de oprindeligt er skrevet på jiddisch. I centrum af hans forfatterskab er livet i jødiske landsbyer i Central- og Østeuropa før Holocaust, projiceret i en realistisk stil med et strejf af mystik – en stil, der af mange betragtes som både grotesk og obskøn. Rollelisten af karakterer stammer fra jødisk folklore og byder på alt fra synske, troldmænd, tåber, vismænd, ludere og fanatikere til djævle, dæmoner og intellektuelle. I tråd hermed afspejles indholdsmæssige kampe mellem tradition og modernitet, godt og ondt og moral. Hans forfatterskab, som omfatter romaner, noveller, børnehistorier og erindringer, gav Singer Nobelprisen i litteratur i 1978.

Herman Broder, a refugee and Holocaust survivor, has three women in his life: Yadwiga, the loyal Polish peasant who hid him in a hayloft from the Nazis; Masha, his beautiful and neurotic true love; and Tamara, his first wife. Unsure of who he really is, what he wants and whether he can ever find peace, Herman navigates a crowded, Yiddish New York with a sense of paranoia and impending doom. Published in 1972, Enemies, A Love Story is an astonishing novel that blends humour and pathos to create a rich, humane portrayal of a man who cannot escape his past. ''One is forever suspended between laughter and tears by this rich and marvellous novel.'' The New York Times ''Isaac Bashevis Singer is a rare pleasure . . . a literary genius.'' San Francisco Chronicle Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Cuando el rabino Leib construye un golem para que salve a su pueblo, no se imagina el poder que va a cobrar la estatua de barro. De la materia inanimada ha surgido una terrible criatura imposible de dirigir. ¿Cómo controlar un enorme gigante cuya voluntad escapará a su creador?

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Polish-born Yiddish writer and Nobel laureate, and New York documentary photographer Bruce Davidson collaborated on a surreal feature film made in 1973, entitled Isaac Bashevis Singer''s Nightmare and Mrs. Pupko''s Beard. This film was at once a documentary about Singer''s New York and a dramatization of one his short stories. The film grew out of their friendship, as residents of the same building on the upper West Side of Manhattan, and their common interest in New York City street life. During and after production, Davidson made numerous portraits of Singer and also returned to the Lower East Side for a documentary series of photographs. A selection of more than forty of the stunning images made between 1957 and 1990 is available here for the first time in Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side: Photographs by Bruce Davidson. The book also includes portraits of Singer, stills from the film, the black and white portfolio known as The Garden Cafeteria, and selections from the Lower East Side series. The Garden Cafeteria was a collaboration depicting denizens of the East Broadway restaurant frequented by Singer during his trips to The Jewish Daily Forward. The portfolio has never been published nor exhibited in its entirety--until this volume. Included is an introduction by Singer himself on Davidson''s images, an in-depth interview with Davidson about his art, aesthetic and political views, and his Jewishness, and a reflective, contextual essay by Ilan Stavans on the relevance of this collaboration between the writer and the photographer. Through Davidson''s lens we see Singer''s literary world of Holocaust survivors and émigrés from Eastern Europe--a displaced culture in its twilight. This book is a co-publication and appears in conjunction with an exhibition organized and presented by the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, on the occasion of the centennial celebration nationwide of Singer''s birth in 2004.

An authentic literary great, Singer was an author whose extraordinary talents won him a worldwide audience. And with this impressive novel, he proved that he was at the height of his creative power until his recent death at age 86. Scum evokes the teeming life of 1906 Warsaw''s backstreets. Max Barabander, distraught over the recent death of his son, flees the life of wealth and respectability he has attained in Buenos Aires, to return to the poverty and shadows of his youth spent in Warsaw. He fears impotence which leads him to the pursuit of mindless sex with five different women who view him only as an escape from their drab lives. The author recalls the teeming life of 1906 Jewish Warsaw in this impressive novel of changing mores and values. . .

In an age of darkness Poland lives under the iron fist of Krol Rudy until their leader, returns with the knowledge of an outside civilised world.

A delightful sequel to a cherished autobiographical collection by the Nobel Laureate In My Father''s Court is one of Isaac Bashevis Singer''s most affecting autobiographical works. The stories in it, published serially in the Jewish Daily Forward, depict the beth din in his father''s home on Krochmalna Street in Warsaw. A unique institution, the beth din was a combined court of law, synagogue, scholarly institution, and psychologist''s office where people sought out the advice and counsel of a neighborhood rabbi. The thirty-one stories gathered here, none previously published in English, show this world as it appeared to a young boy: In "A Guest in the Prayerhouse," a man who has converted to Judaism embarrasses the community with his extreme piety; in "She Will Surely Be Ashamed," a couple come for a divorce after forty years of marriage even though they are still in love; in the extraordinary "He Begs Forgiveness," a jeweler apologizes to his former fiancée for abandoning her twelve years before, igniting the imagination of the young Singer, who dreams of writing stories about dark, eternal love. From the earthy to the ethereal, these stories provide an intimate and powerful evocation of a world.

The mean and ugly Emperor Cho Cho Shan, determined to be considered the handsomest and noblest man in China, declares that everything is to be the opposite of what it was and evil, ugliness, and stupidity are to be the most admired qualities in his kingdom.

This work chronicles 10 years in the life of Isacc Bashevis Singer, as shared by a fellow writer close to him at the time. Goran recounts the course of their friendship. This is an opportunity to learn about the Yiddish writer who often concealed hie real beliefs, feelings and personal history.

Collections of interviews with notable modern writers

Singer''s late novel, a magical and resonant fable, recreates the birth of the Polish nation. Through the compelling figure of Cybula, defeated leader of a tribe of hunter-gatherers, it explores the moment when prehistory dissolved into history, superstitions became tinged with skepticism, and men began to turn from many gods towards one god.

A collection of short stories that deal with Jewish folklore and legend.

‘[A] delightful and distinguished book [of seven tales] from middle European folklore [by the winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature].’ —BL. 1967 Newbery Honor Book Notable Children''s Books of 1940–1970 (ALA) 1966 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book) "Best of the Best" Children''s Books 1966–1978 (SLJ) Best Illustrated Children''s Books of 1966 (NYT) Children''s Books of 1966 (Library of Congress) Children''s Books of the Year 1966 (CSA)

This a selection of forty-seven stories chosen by the [Nobel-Prize-winning] author from eight prior collections [1957-1981].

These stories with Jews as central characters range in locale from Europe and the Middle East to America.

Translated by from Yiddish by Roger H. Klein and others.

"This classic collection explores the varieties of wisdom gained with age and especially those that teach us how to love, as ''in love the young are just beginners and the art of loving matures with age and experience''. Tales of curious marriages and divorce mingle with psychic experiences and curses, acts of bravery and loneliness, love and hatred"--