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Encyclopedia of Jewish-American literature Encyclopedia of Jewish-American literature Gloria L. Cronin Alan L. Berger Encyclopedia of Jewish-American Literature Copyright © 2009 by Gloria L. Cronin, Alan L. Berger All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cronin, Gloria L., 1947– Encyclopedia of Jewish-American literature / Gloria L. Cronin, Alan L. Berger. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-6085-6 (hc : alk. paper) 1. American literature—Jewish authors—Encyclopedias. I. Berger, Alan L., 1939– PS153.J4C76 2008 810.9’8924003—dc22 2008007872 II. Title. Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Rachel L. Berlin Cover design by Takeshi Takahashi Printed in the United States of America VB KT 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper and contains 30 percent postconsumer recycled content. Table of Contents Introduction vii Acknowledgments xi A Survey of Jewish-American Literature A-to-Z Entries xiii 1 Primary Source Bibliography 332 Bibliography of Secondary Sources 345 List of Contributors 362 Index 364 Introduction About This Volume Defining a Jewish-American Writer The entries in this volume introduce more than 100 Jewish-American writers and their literary works. The majority of these writers are American-born, with some notable exceptions: Saul Bellow was born in Canada, Isaac Singer in Poland, and Elie Wiesel in Romania. Bellow and Singer spent most of their lives in America; Wiesel continues to live in America. Bellow and Singer were both Nobel laureates in literature, while Wiesel is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Their disparate voices have helped weave the complex fabric of Jewish-American literature, while at the same time expressing the relationship between Jewish particularity and the tradition’s universal message of freedom as articulated in the master narrative of the Exodus. This narrative is also emphasized by other writers, such as Emma Lazarus, a Jewish-American poet, whose poem “The New Colossus” appears on the base of the Statue of Liberty, which after 1886 welcomed new immigrants to American shores. Most of the Jewish-American authors in this book, like most of the Jews in America, trace their roots to the Ashkenazim from eastern and central Europe, although some few claim descent from the Sephardim of Spain and North Africa. Given the long history and many wanderings of the Jewish people, we might well wonder what the term Jewish-American means. The long-standing debate concerning just who qualifies as a Jewish writer has often been symbolically embodied in the argument over whether to refer to oneself as an AmericanJewish author or a Jewish-American author. The three major Jewish writers from mid-to-late-20th century, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Philip Roth, all at one time strenuously rejected the label “Jewish writer.” Malamud even universalized the definition of Jewishness, which he might have characterized as the ability to grow morally as a result of s