Alan Mintz is the Chana Kekst Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is the editor (with Jeffrey Saks) of the first English-language translation of S. Y. Agnon's A City in Its Fullness (2016) and the author of Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry (Stanford, 2011).

• Introduction: "I Am Building a City"1. A Baedeker to Buczacz2. Inventing a Narrator3. Worship and Danger: A Cantorial Triptych4. Rabbis and Scholars5. Jews and Poles6. Austrian Mandates7. Disappeared8. Moments of RedemptionEpilogue

"This beautifully written book invites readers into Agnon's world, expanding our reading of Agnon's modernism with brilliant insights into his literary project, while conveying a vivid sense of the milieu and history of Buczacz. The result is both a crucial contribution to Agnon studies and a richly textured cultural history."—Anne Golomb Hoffman, author of Between Exile and Return: S. Y. Agnon and the Drama of Writing "This insightful, complex, and yet utterly accessible interpretation of the major stories that make up Agnon's unique history of Buczacz, Ancestral Tales will remain the key text for understanding Agnon's last endeavor and the universe contained within its covers. A tremendous accomplishment."—Omer Bartov, author of Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz