In the little Polish town of Goray, ravaged by a terrible pogrom, expectations of the 'End of Days' foretold by cabalists run high. Grief becomes joy as news arrives from the Holy Land of the second coming of the Messiah. Usurping power from the pious rabbi, the believers listen to the prophetess Rechele and prepare themselves for the Coming of the Lord, when they will wear golden jackets and eat marzipan candy in the heart of Jerusalem. As religious hysteria grips the town, spirits and demons are abroad at night, and the people grow weaker by the day. But perhaps it is not the spirit of the Lord who possesses the body and mind of Rechele, but Satan himself.
As messianic zeal sweeps through medieval Poland, the Jews of Goray divide between those who, like the Rabbi, insist that no one can "force the end" and those who follow the messianic pretender Sabbatai Zevi. But as hysteria and depravity increase, it becomes clear that it is not the Messiah who has come to Goray.
Shosha is a hauntingly lyrical love story set in Jewish Warsaw on the eve of its annihilation. Aaron Greidinger, an aspiring Yiddish writer and the son of a distinguished Hasidic rabbi, struggles to be true to his art when faced with the chance at riches and a passport to America. But as he and the rest of the Writers' Club wait in horror for Nazi Germany to invade Poland, Aaron rediscovers Shosha, his childhood love-still living on Krochmalna Street, still mysteriously childlike herself-who has been waiting for him all these years.
From the Upper West Side to Miami's pastel resorts, "Shadows on the Hudson" traces the intertwined destiny of survivors in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
A collection of eighteen essays that represent Singer's fullest treatment of topics he engaged with throughout his life. Most of the selected essays were originally published in Yiddish or delivered as lectures but have never been published in English before
What exactly is goodness? Where is it found in the literary imagination? Toni Morrison, one of American letters’ greatest voices, pondered these perplexing questions in her celebrated Ingersoll Lecture, delivered at Harvard University in 2012 and published now for the first time in book form. Perhaps because it is overshadowed by the more easily defined evil, goodness often escapes our attention. Recalling many literary examples, from Ahab to Coetzee’s Michael K, Morrison seeks the essence of goodness and ponders its significant place in her writing. She considers the concept in relation to unforgettable characters from her own works of fiction and arrives at conclusions that are both eloquent and edifying. In a lively interview conducted for this book, Morrison further elaborates on her lecture’s ideas, discussing goodness not only in literature but in society and history—particularly black history, which has responded to centuries of brutality with profound creativity. Morrison’s essay is followed by a series of responses by scholars in the fields of religion, ethics, history, and literature to her thoughts on goodness and evil, mercy and love, racism and self-destruction, language and liberation, together with close examination of literary and theoretical expressions from her works. Each of these contributions, written by a scholar of religion, considers the legacy of slavery and how it continues to shape our memories, our complicities, our outcries, our lives, our communities, our literature, and our faith. In addition, the contributors engage the religious orientation in Morrison’s novels so that readers who encounter her many memorable characters such as Sula, Beloved, or Frank Money will learn and appreciate how Morrison’s notions of goodness and mercy also reflect her understanding of the sacred and the human spirit.
Nobel Prize-winner Isaac Bashevis Singer is best remembered for his short stories, which drew on traditions of folk tales and Yiddish culture to explore good and evil, passion and restraint, religious fervour and personal failings with wisdom, wit and humanity. The three collected here, about a girl who pretends to be a man to study the Torah, a frustrated demon and a writer trying to understand a Holocaust survivor, illuminate eternal themes with supernatural grace.
