Singer's typewriter and mine : reflections on Jewish culture / Ilan Stavans.

A cultural critic of extraordinary erudition, encyclopedic knowledge, and boundless curiosity, Ilan Stavans, an Ashkenazic Jew who grew up in Mexico, negotiates wildly varied topics as effortlessly and deftly as he manages the multiple perspectives of a dual national, religious, and ethnic identity. In Singer's Typewriter and Mine, a follow-up to The Inveterate Dreamer (Nebraska, 2001), Stavans interweaves his own experience with that of other Jewish writers and thinkers, past and present, to explore modern Jewish culture across the boundaries of language and nation. Juxtaposing the personal and the analytical, these essays and conversations take up the oeuvres of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Mario Vargas Llosa, translation and God's language, storytelling as midrash, anti-Semitism in Hispanic America, Yiddish and Sephardic literatures, the connection between humor and terror, impostors as cultural agents, the creators of the King James Bible, and the encounter between Jewish and Latino civilizations, to name but a few of Stavans's topics here. Funny, engaging, and provocative, this collection continues Stavans's project of opening new vistas in our cross-cultural understanding of language, literature, and life.

Includes bibliographical references.

Waiting for Rabbi Harvey. A visit to centro historico -- Essays -- Singer's typewriter and mine -- Vilde khaye! -- Doctor Esperanto -- Letter from Caracas -- Harry Houdini -- Singer: a purim parody -- Introduction to Moacyr Scliar's The centaur in the garden -- O r*o*s*t*e*n! my r*o*s*t*e*n! -- Juan Gelman's Dibaxu -- I found it at the movies -- Translating Tevye -- Nora's will -- Thinking aloud: the education of Maurice Samuel -- Mario Vargas Ilosa: judeophile -- American Jews: response to moment -- The hate of Norberto Ceresole -- Photographing Singer -- Is there a God? -- Jacobo Timerman: prisoner without a name -- Borges and Israel: three poems -- Yiddish south of the border -- Homero Aridjis: lessons of 1492 -- Rereading Lionel Trilling: in the American grain -- Mauricio Rosencof: the letters that never came -- A personal history of Jewish reading -- Esther Kreitman: the other singer -- Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer -- Philip Roth: the plagiarist -- Bruno Schulz on stage -- Sephardic literature: unity and dispersion -- The Jewish identity project. What melting pot? multiculturalism and American Jews: oy, are we a pluribus? -- Conversations. The Buenos Aires affair, with Nathan Englander -- Humor and terror, with Marcelo Birmajer -- Impostors r us, with Robin Dizard -- Nostalgia and recognition, with Morris Dickstein -- A fine range of motion, with Allegra Goodman -- God's translators. Reflections on the King James Bible, with Veronica Albin -- Storytelling as Midrash. People of the picture book.

Print version record.

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