Library of Modern Jewish Literature
4 total works
A ten-year chronicle of domestic violence and crisis, this novel recreates the pathology of one Brooklyn family in the mid-1940s and early 1950s, told through the voice of a young child.
A splendidly translated exploration of major themes in classical Arabic literature by the most inventive and provocative critic of Arabic literature in the Middle East today. In this exceptional volume, Abedlfattah Kilito argues that genre - not authorship - is at the heart of classic Arabic literature. Using simple yet lyrical language, he examines love poetry and panegyric, the Prophet's Hadith and the literary anecdote, as well as such recurring themes as memorization, plagiarism and forgery, and dream visions of the dead. Ultimately, he evokes these as an allegory for post-colonial Arab North Africa. An elegant translation faithfully captures the author's poetic finesse and makes the book easily accessible to English-speaking readers. Warmly received by critics and anthropologists, this volume is a must for scholars, students, and devotees of Arab culture.
A group of connected stories about Anna Goldman, a widowed 80-year-old woman living alone in the Fairfax neighbourhood in Los Angeles and her struggle to maintain her independence, keep her feisty spirit and ward of elderly suitors.
In ""The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn"", Merrill Joan Gerber, so often applauded for her pure and natural prose, illuminates the sorrows and triumphs of three generations of sisters from an American Jewish family. Rachel and Rose, who come to America from Poland, discover their fates in New York's Lower East Side, where ""the streets are paved with gold."" Rachel's daughters, Ava, Musetta, and Gilda, live the passionate drama of their family's destiny while the world fights two wars. In war and peace the men they love, their husbands and sons, bring them both ecstasy and bitter grief. Musetta's daughters, Issa and Iris, bring the story to its poignant close at the end of World War II. With a delicate touch yet piercing insight, Gerber explores the yearnings, loves, and struggles of women who try to adapt the Jewish rituals of the ""old country"" to the requirements of the new world. Ava marries young to escape the wrath of her stepfather, while his favorite daughters, Musetta and Gilda, begin a battle of wills that will last a lifetime. Musetta, beautiful but troubled by jealousies and anger, taunts shy and delicate Gilda, who is anguished that the man destined to marry her falls in love with her sister. In this epic tale, Gerber's unerring pen explores, with forthrightness and compassion, a mosaic of family life in all its entanglements, revelations, and victories.