Isaac B. Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91) is widely recognized as the most popular Yiddish writer of the twentieth century. His work, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978, is beloved around the globe. In "Isaac B. Singer", Florence Noiville offers a glimpse into the world of this much-beloved but persistently elusive figure. Singer was able to re-create the lost world of Jewish Eastern Europe and also to describe the immigrant experience in America. Drawing heavily upon folklore, Singer's work is noted for its mystical strain. But, he was also heavily concerned with the problems of his own day, and through his novels and stories run a strong undercurrent of social consciousness. Singer's personal life was marked by contradiction: the son of a rabbi, he struggled with warring currents of devotion and doubt. Solicitous of affection, he was also known for his philandering. Drawing on letters, personal recollections, and interviews with Singer's friends, family, and publishing contemporaries, Noiville speaks to these paradoxes.
A remarkably vivid portrait of the man and his work emerges - a compassionate and insightful vision of one of the twentieth century's greatest storytellers.