Isaac Bashevis Singer, jiddischförfattaren mellan två världar

Authors

• Marianne Michelson Åbo akademi

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.69542

Keywords:

Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 1904-1991, Jewish literature, American literature -- Jewish authors, Polish literature -- Jewish authors, Yiddish language, Nobel Prizes

Abstract

Isaac Baschevis Singer (1941–1991) – 1978 Nobel Prize winner – grew up in Chassidic milieu in Poland. Influenced by secular literature and by the works of Baruch Spinonza already in his youth, Singer as an adult distanced himself from traditional Jewish thinking but never freed himself from the surroundings in which he grew up. In his literary works a central theme is the conflict between orthodox faith and secular ideas. In 1935 Singer emigrated to the United States. Nevertheless, until his death he continued to write in his mother tongue Yiddish, and he was the first to deliver a Nobel Prize speech in this language. In his works the supernatural and the rational are intermingling. His memories from a vanished culture never have a sentimental or nostalgic character. First and foremost he is the storyteller who shuns moralistic pointing fingers. His stories seem at first simple and uncomplicated. In the closer reading, however, the great depth of these stories is opening itself up. Despite the fact that the milieu of the stories is pointedly Jewish, the subject is human beings in general and eternal human questions.