Jewish Literature: A Very Short Introduction

The story of Jewish literature spans the globe as well as the centuries. It includes groups as diverse as the marrano poets and memorialists in medieval Spain, the Yiddish writings of Eastern Europe, the narratives of Jewish immigrants to the United States, the accounts of horror during the Holocaust, the work of Israeli authors since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, and Jewish works in Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina, and South Africa at the end of the twentieth century.

In this thought-provoking introduction to Jewish literature from 1492 to the present, Ilan Stavans focuses on its multilingual and transnational nature, presents its subject through the kaleidoscope of its many writers and traditions. He features writers as diverse as Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, Anzia Yezierska, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Irving Howe, Clarice Lispector, Susan Sontag, Philip Roth, Grace Paley, Amos Oz, and David Grossman.