Jewish Writing and Identity in the Twentieth Century

Yudkin, Leon

ISBN 10: 0312442343 / ISBN 13: 9780312442347

Published by St. Martin's Press, 1982

About this Item

Black cl. w. gilt letters on bkstr. Dj. unclipped in heavy mylar. 166p. incl. bibliogr., index. Publisher's review copy enclosure laid in. Nice copy.

Seller Inventory # 2872

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Jewish Writing and Identity in the Twentieth Century
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication Date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312442343
• ISBN 13: 9780312442347
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • EXILE LITERATURE
  • Judaica

About this title

Synopsis

From the 1880s, when systematic pogroms in Russia led to massive emigration, there have been two themes in Jewish history - persecution, culminating in the holocaust, and the corresponding search for a place in the world, which led to emigration to America, the rise of Zionism and the emergence of the State of Israel. In spite of these factors, Jews throughout the world have maintained their sense of identity and their cohesion as a people. One factor which has enabled them to do this has been the formation of an ideological vision of themselves - a sense of Jewishness - and one major way in which this ideology expresses itself is through the contributions by Jews to literature and thought.

This book, originally published in 1982 by an established authority on Hebrew and Israeli literature, analyses the characteristics of the Jewish sense of identity as it appears in twentieth-century Jewish literature. It considers the work of a variety of authors who wrote in different periods and countries, and shows how their Jewish background pervades their writing. Some of the authors discussed are Franz Kafka, Osip Mandelstam, Henry Roth, Giorgio Bassani, S.Y. Agnon, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer. This book will be particularly useful since a complete understanding of the Jews in the twentieth century can only be gained by appreciating their literary and intellectual achievements.