1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910953490603321

Autore

Stavans Ilan

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Lincoln, NE, : University of Nebraska Press, c2001

ISBN

9786610424337

9781280424335

1280424338

9780803242845

0803242840

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (320 p.)

Collana

Texts & contexts

Disciplina

305.892/4

Soggetti

Jews - Intellectual life - 20th century

Sephardim - Intellectual life - 20th century

Jewish authors

Jewish literature - 20th century - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

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

Sommario/riassunto

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.