American Jewish Fiction: A Century of Stories - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080329252X ISBN 13: 9780803292529

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1998

Synopsis

This anthology presents an ambitious cross-section of Jewish American short fiction. It covers a full century of extraordinary writings, from turn-of-the-century immigrant fiction to stories by some of the finest young contemporary American writers. To read through its pages is to encounter a remarkable—and remarkably diverse—literary tradition.

The volume opens with stories by two important immigrant writers from the early twentieth century, Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yezierska. There follows a generous selection of modern Jewish American stories by such celebrated authors as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, Grace Paley, Tillie Olsen, Bernard Malamud, and Philip Roth. The collection concludes with a rich sampling of stories by contemporary writers whose works illustrate the impressive variety and vitality of recent Jewish American fiction.

Equally suited to scholars, students, and general readers, American Jewish Fiction provides an invaluable survey of literary works that have enriched and transformed American—and world—literature.

About this title

About the Author

Gerald Shapiro (1950–2011) was a professor of English at the University of Nebraska. He is the author of From Hunger: Stories, which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction and Bad Jews and Other Stories.

From Kirkus Reviews

paper 0-8032-9252-X Shapiros vigorous and highly entertaining collection of 23 stories forms a valuable complement to Ilan Stavans's current Oxford Book of Jewish Short Stories (p. 1327). Though some better-known contemporaries are represented by such perhaps overfamiliar pieces as Saul Bellow's ``A Silver Dish'' and Cynthia Ozick's ``Envy,'' Shapiro also offers such unconventional delights as a fine, wry Bernard Malamud story (``The Lady of the Lake'') and Philip Roth's ``On the Air,'' a dazzling display of verbal comic energy that first appeared nearly 30 years ago in Theodore Solotaroff's American Review. The selections are uniformly well chosen to portray familiar component parts of the Jewish-American experience: immigration, Holocaust survival, assimilation, generational conflict, and the hard-fought preservation of traditional culture. One regrets the omission of writers like Daniel Fuchs and Lore Segal, but appreciates the vivid presences of Steve Stern (his frisky ``The Tale of a Kite''), Robin Hemley (whose ironical ``The 19th Jew'' is a beauty), Melvin James Bukiet, and the precociously gifted and justly acclaimed Allegra Goodman. There isn't a dud to be found in this consummately readable anthology. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 080329252X
• ISBN 13: 9780803292529
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432
• Editor: Shapiro Gerald