Israel Joshua Singer
| Israel Joshua Singer | |
|---|---|
 Israel Joshua Singer photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1938 | |
| Born |
November 30, 1893 Biłgoraj, Congress Poland |
| Died |
February 10, 1944 (aged 50) New York City, USA |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Language | Yiddish |
| Ethnicity | Polish Jew |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Genres | fictional prose |
| Notable work(s) | The Brothers Ashkenazi |
Israel Joshua Singer (Yiddish: ישראל יהושע זינגער; November 30, 1893, Biłgoraj, Congress Poland — February 10, 1944 New York) was a Yiddish novelist. He was born Yisroel Yehoyshue Zinger, the son of Pinchas Mendl Zinger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Basheva Zylberman. He was the brother of Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer and novelist Esther Kreitman.
Singer contributed to the European Yiddish press from 1916. In 1921, after Abraham Cahan noticed his story Pearls, Singer became a correspondent for the leading American Yiddish newspaper The Forward. His short story Liuk appeared in 1924, illuminating the ideological confusion of the Bolshevik Revolution. He wrote his first novel, Steel and Iron, in 1927. In 1934 he emigrated to the United States. He died in New York City in 1944.
His memoir Of a World That is No More was published posthumously in 1946. His other works include:
- Steel and Iron (1927)
- Yoshe Kalb (1932)
- The Brothers Ashkenazi (1936)
- The Family Karnovsky (1969)
- East of Eden, (originally titled Khaver Nachman) published by Alfred J. Knopf (1939)
In the introduction to A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg note that Singer's books are organized "in a way that satisfies the usual Western expectations as to literary structure. His novels resemble the kind of family chronicle popular in Europe several decades ago [that is, the turn of the century]".[1]
Citations
- ↑ Howe, Irving; Greenberg, Eliezer, eds. (1954). A treasury of Yiddish stories. New York: Viking Press. p. 84.
References
- Norich, Anita (2000). "Singer, Israel Joshua". American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press.
External links
|