The inveterate dreamer : essays and conversations on Jewish culture / Ilan Stavans.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stavans, Ilan.

Series:

Texts and contexts (Unnumbered)

Texts & contexts

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Intellectual life--20th century.

Jews.

Sephardim--Intellectual life--20th century.

Sephardim.

Jewish authors.

Jewish literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Jewish literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lincoln, NE : University of Nebraska Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Not only do "modern" Jewish languages like Yiddish and Hebrew have their own Jewish writers, but every major Western tongue-from German and Russian to English and Portuguese-does as well. These writers are often at the crossroad between the two traditions: their Jewish one and their own national one. Is there such a thing as a modern Jewish literary tradition, one navigating across linguistic and national lines? If so, how should one define it? Ilan Stavans is uniquely qualified to answer these questions and to comment on the power and challenges of cultural margins and literary crossings. He has been at the forefront of an appreciation of the Jewish literary tradition that is less asphyxiating, more global. His reflections on Jewish Latin America have won him the nickname "pathfinder." This incomparable volume showcases Stavans's most insightful and provocative-and at times controversial-observations on transnational Jewish culture and literature. Stavans explores the problems and prospects of representing Jewish experiences through such media as Holocaust memoirs and Jewish museums; astutely comments on well-known intellectual figures, including Lionel Trilling, Isaac Babel, Primo Levi, Harold Bloom, and Walter Benjamin; engages in memorable conversations with Norman Manea, Joseph Brodsky, and Ariel Dorfman; and offers compelling glimpses of revelatory moments in his own life.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-284) and index.

ISBN:

9786610424337

9781280424335

1280424338

9780803242845

0803242840

OCLC:

49870067