The Writer Uprooted: Contemporary Jewish Exile Literature »

Alvin H. Rosenfeld is Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, and founder and former director of the Indiana University Borns Jewish Studies Program. He is author of Imagining Hitler (IUP, 1985) and A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature (IUP, 1980). He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

The Writer Uprooted is the first book to examine the emergence of a new generation of Jewish immigrant authors in America, most of whom grew up in formerly communist countries. In essays that are both personal and scholarly, the contributors to this collection chronicle and clarify issues of personal and cultural dislocation and loss, but also affirm the possibilities of reorientation and renewal. Writers, poets, translators, and critics such as Matei Calinescu, Morris Dickstein, Henryk Grynberg, Geoffrey Hartman, Eva Hoffman, Katarzyna Jerzak, Dov-Ber Kerler, Norman Manea, Zsuzsanna Ozsvath, Lara Vapnyar, and Bronislava Volkova describe how they have coped creatively with the trials of displacement and the challenges and opportunities of resettlement in a new land and, for some, authorship in a new language.

Choice

. . . this is a worthwhile read. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, general readers.

Introduction Alvin H. Rosenfeld Rosenfeld, Alvin H.

Nomadic Language Norman Manea Manea, Norman 1

On Norman Manea's The Hooligan's Return Matei Calinescu Calinescu, Matei 27

Writing about Uprootedness Henryk Grynberg Grynberg, Henryk 51

Exile as Life after Death in the Writings of Henryk Grynberg and Norman Manea Katarzyna Jerzak Jerzak, Katarzyna 75

The Writer as Tour Guide Lara Vapnyar Vapnyar, Lara 92

Questions of Identity: The New World of the Immigrant Writer Morris Dickstein Dickstein, Morris 110

A Displaced Scholar's Tale: The Jewish Factor Geoffrey Hartman Hartman, Geoffrey 133

Exile: Inside and Out Bronislava Volkova Volkova, Bronislava 161

From Country to Country: My Search for Home Zsuzsanna Ozsvath Ozsvath, Zsuzsanna 177

Finding a Virtual Home for Yiddish Poetry in Southern Indiana Dov-Ber Kerler Kerler, Dov-Ber 216

Afterword Eva Hoffman Hoffman, Eva 234

List of Contributors 247

Index 251