Pomegranate Seeds: Latin American Jewish Tales (Jewish Latin America Series) - Softcover

Nagarajan, Nadia Grosser

Softcover

ISBN 10: 082632391X ISBN 13: 9780826323910

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, 2005

Synopsis

Pomegranate Seeds is the first collection of the oral tradition of Latin American Jews to be presented in English. These thirty-four tales span the 500 years of Jewish presence in Latin America and the Caribbean. The folktales and cultural oral narratives were often based on actual events, recorded not only from the Ashkenazi perspective but from the Sephardic and Oriental as well. Like dispersed pomegranate seeds, all the stories come from a common cluster, yet each is a separate kernel.

The stories are short, between five and fifteen pages, and each is carefully annotated. In addition to gathering stories from eleven Latin American countries, the author found material in the United States and Israel. Regardless of their origin, several tales have to do with personal feelings, emotional insights, and interpretation of the protagonists, while others deal with happy or traumatic events that cannot be forgotten and dreams that have not been fulfilled.

Not surprisingly, trauma and bigotry are common threads through some of the stories. These are tales, as Nadia Grosser Nagarajan says, "concealed by tropical greenery, encircled by vast jungles and flowing majestic rivers that echo many voices and reflect many views and visions."

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The first collection of the oral tradition of Latin American Jews to be presented in English.

About the Author:

Nadia Grosser Nagarajan is also the author of Jewish Tales from Eastern Europe. She lives in San Jose, California.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 082632391X
• ISBN 13: 9780826323910
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 207