The Book of Paradise
The Marvellous Life Story of Samuel Abba Strewth
Published on 28. September 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-78227-925-9 (ISBN)
Description
The raucously witty Yiddish classic about a Jewish Paradise afflicted by very human temptations and pains, in a new translation
On being expelled from Paradise, young Samuel Abba pulls a crafty trick, managing to arrive on earth with his memory intact. He quickly begins regaling the humans around him with mischievous stories of a Paradise far from their expectations: a world of drunken angels, lewd patriarchs and the same divisions and temptations that shape the human world.
The Book of Paradise is a comic masterpiece, and the only novel by one of the great Yiddish writers. Written in the midst of rising anti-Semitism in 1930s Europe, its raucous blend of sacred and profane is a slyly profound reflection of the author's turbulent times.
On being expelled from Paradise, young Samuel Abba pulls a crafty trick, managing to arrive on earth with his memory intact. He quickly begins regaling the humans around him with mischievous stories of a Paradise far from their expectations: a world of drunken angels, lewd patriarchs and the same divisions and temptations that shape the human world.
The Book of Paradise is a comic masterpiece, and the only novel by one of the great Yiddish writers. Written in the midst of rising anti-Semitism in 1930s Europe, its raucous blend of sacred and profane is a slyly profound reflection of the author's turbulent times.
Reviews / Votes
There is something joyous about Manger's playful language -- David Herman * Jewish Chronicle * Itzik Manger's novel strikes an utterly distinctive note in modern fiction-a high-spirited amalgam of whimsy, fantasy, and satire, all of it anchored in a rich sense of the folklore, belief system, and social behavior of East European Jewry before modernity. The book is a delight to read, and it is well-served by Robert Adler Peckerar's lively, colloquially vivid translation from the Yiddish -- Robert Alter Electrifying... sparkles with Manger's song and poetry, and is brilliantly layered with literary and folkloric references' * Tablet *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pushkin Press
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 124 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
210 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78227-925-9 (9781782279259)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2023
Pushkin Press
€9.59
Available for download
Persons
Itzik Manger was born in 1901 to a Jewish family in Czernowitz (then Austria-Hungary; now Chernivtsi, Ukraine). He began publishing poems and ballads in literary journals after the First World War, moving to Bucharest where he wrote for the local Yiddish press and gave lectures. Manger's literary reputation was made in Warsaw: he relocated there in 1928 and found considerable success publishing volumes of poetry and his own literary journal, doing public readings and composing lyrics for the Yiddish cabaret and the Yiddish film industry.
Manger began writing The Book of Paradise in the mid-1930s amid rising anti-Semitism. The novel was initially serialized in 1937 in the Warsaw-based newspaper Naye Folkstsaytung. Forced to leave Poland the next year, Manger negotiated the publication of The Book of Paradise as a stateless person in Paris. He later moved to England and then the United States before settling in Israel, where he died in 1969.
Manger began writing The Book of Paradise in the mid-1930s amid rising anti-Semitism. The novel was initially serialized in 1937 in the Warsaw-based newspaper Naye Folkstsaytung. Forced to leave Poland the next year, Manger negotiated the publication of The Book of Paradise as a stateless person in Paris. He later moved to England and then the United States before settling in Israel, where he died in 1969.