Isaac Bashevis Singer

An Album

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991) is the most famous Yiddish writer of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential and important Jewish-American writer ever. Here, to coincide with Singer's Centennial and the release of Collected Stories, is a useful, handy, and beautifully illustrated guide to the life and work of the Nobel Prize-winning writer featuring contributions from some of today's leading writers.

Isaac Bashevis Singer: An Album presents images from the Singer Centennial Exhibition, which will travel around the country throughout 2004. Drawn from the remarkable collection of Singer papers, memorabilia, and artifacts held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Singer Centennial Exhibition will visit Massachusetts, Florida, and New York. Serving in part as the print companion to the exhibit, Isaac Bashevis Singer: An Album will feature color reproductions of many images—some published here for the first time—as well as detailed captions.

But the Album is more than a companion to the exhibition. It features Singer's brief memoir of his arrival in America, as well as appreciations of and anecdotes about Singer from some of today's leading writers, including Cynthia Ozick, Jonathan Safran Foer, Francine Prose, Nicholas Dawidoff, Harvey Shapiro, and Joyce Carol Oates, among others. These writers share personal recollections of Singer, reveal his influences on their own work, and speculate on the secrets of his enduring appeal and lasting legacy.

Ilan Stavans, editor, is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His other books include The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories and, most recently, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda. His work has been translated into half a dozen languages.

To listen to a convseration between Ilan Stavans and NPR's Robert Siegel, please click here.

By Isaac Bashevis Singer:
Collected Stories: Gimpel the Fool to The Letter Writer
Collected Stories: A Friend of Kafka to Passions
Collected Stories: One Night In Brazil to The Death Of Methuselah

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