Singer, Isaac Bashevis
Singer, Isaac Bashevis( 1904–91),Polish-born author of Yiddish fiction, descendant of rabbis, like his elder brother, Israel Joshua Singer, turned from a rabbinical background to a career as a writer. In 1935 he followed his brother to New York City, where he became a journalist, writing in Yiddish for the Jewish Daily Forward, in which he has also published most of his fiction. His work deals mostly with the exotic heritage of Polish Jews, their traditional faith and folkways, their daily village life, their mysticism, their colorful personal relationships, their religious fanaticism, and their sexuality. His first major work, Satan in Goray (Yiddish, 1935; English, 1955) treats the aftermath of a 17th-century polish pogrom, when the remaining Jews turned to a messianic sect with mystic and erotic beliefs. The first of his books to appear in English (and all dates following refer to first publications in English) was The...
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