The Third Solitude (Paperback)

Benjamin Libman

ISBN 10: 1459753666 / ISBN 13: 9781459753662

Published by The Dundurn Group, Toronto, 2025

About this Item

Paperback. A frank love letter to modern Jewish life. MERVE EMRE, contributing writer, The New YorkerAn intimate memoir in essays seeking familial history and personal memory against the backdrop of the lost world of North American Jewry.What is the past? How can we let it speak on its own terms, without forcing it into the categories of history? In The Third Solitude, Benjamin Libman gathers and weaves the threads of multiple pasts of his community, of his family, and of himself in an attempt to escape the inadequate narratives around Zionism that he grew up with, and to create nothing short of a new paradigm.Across a series of interconnected memories, Libman leads us through the many fragments that make a life, unafraid to question deeply cherished beliefs about Jewish identity, and seeks to reconcile his own values with those inculcated in him. Along the way, he casts aside tired tropes and shores together the pieces of a new way of looking toward the future.The Third Solitude is a paean to the art of losing, and to the visions of the past that persist in the present. In a paean to the art of losing, Benjamin Libman gathers and weaves the threads of multiple pasts of his community, of his family, and of himself in search of an answer to one question: what is the past? Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781459753662

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Third Solitude (Paperback)
• Publisher: The Dundurn Group, Toronto
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1459753666
• ISBN 13: 9781459753662
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

“A frank love letter to modern Jewish life.” ― MERVE EMRE, contributing writer, The New Yorker

An intimate memoir in essays seeking familial history and personal memory against the backdrop of the lost world of North American Jewry.

What is the past? How can we let it speak on its own terms, without forcing it into the categories of history? In The Third Solitude, Benjamin Libman gathers and weaves the threads of multiple pasts ― of his community, of his family, and of himself ― in an attempt to escape the inadequate narratives around Zionism that he grew up with, and to create nothing short of a new paradigm.

Across a series of interconnected memories, Libman leads us through the many fragments that make a life, unafraid to question deeply cherished beliefs about Jewish identity, and seeks to reconcile his own values with those inculcated in him. Along the way, he casts aside tired tropes and shores together the pieces of a new way of looking toward the future.

The Third Solitude is a paean to the art of losing, and to the visions of the past that persist in the present..

About the Author

Benjamin Libman is a writer and translator from Montreal whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Yale Review, the London Magazine, the Guardian, and elsewhere. He holds degrees in literature from Columbia University and Stanford University. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Mellon Foundation fellowship. He divides his time between Paris and Montreal.