Katschen and the Book of Joseph

Katschen and the Book of Joseph
Author: Yoel Hoffmann
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1999
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811214056

Truly eye-opening, KATSCHEN & THE BOOK OF JOSEPH makes an amazing American debut for Israeli writer Yoel Hoffmann. THE BOOK OF JOSEPH tells the tragic story of a widowed Jewish tailor and his son in 1930's Berlin; KATSCHEN gives an astounding child's-eye-view of a boy orphaned in Palestine. These two intensely moving novellas display the poetry of Hoffmann's language, which one reviewer has called "utterly enchanting . . . like nothing else". Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The Heart is Katmandu

The Heart is Katmandu
Author: Yoel Hoffmann
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2001
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811214650

The Heart Is Katmandu tells a tale of new love--of paradise gained.

Moods

Moods
Author: Yoel Hoffmann
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2015-06-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0811223833

Yoel Hoffmann—“Israel’s celebrated avant-garde genius” (The Forward)—supplies the magic missing link between the infinitesimal and the infinite Part novel and part memoir, Yoel Hoffmann’s Moods is flooded with feelings, evoked by his family, losses, loves, the soul’s hidden powers, old phone books, and life in the Galilee—with its every scent, breeze, notable dog, and odd neighbor. Carrying these shards is a general tenderness, accentuated by a new dimension brought along by “that great big pill of Prozac.” Beautifully translated by Peter Cole, Moods is fiction for lovers of poetry and poetry for lovers of fiction—a small marvel of a book, and with its pockets of joy, a curiously cheerful book by an author who once compared himself to “a praying mantis inclined to melancholy.”

Other and Brother

Other and Brother
Author: Neta Stahl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2013-01-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199760004

In a groundbreaking exploration of modern Jewish literature, Neta Stahl examines the attitudes adopted by modern Jewish writers toward the figure of Jesus, the ultimate ''Other'' in medieval Jewish literature. Stahl argues that twentieth-century Jewish writers relocated Jesus from his traditional status as the Christian Other to a position as a fellow Jew, a ''brother,'' and even as a means of reconstructing themselves. Other and Brother analyzes the work of a wide array of modern Jewish writers, beginning in the early twentieth century and ending with contemporary Israeli literature. Stahl takes the reader through dramatic changes in Jewish life beginning with the Haskalah (or Jewish Enlightenment) and Emancipation, and subsequently Zionism and the Holocaust. The Holocaust and the formation of the state of Israel caused a major transformation in the Jewish attitude toward Jesus. The emergence of quasi-messianic Zionist ideas of returning to the land of Israel, where the actual Jesus was born, helped other features of the image of Jesus to become a source of attraction and identification for Hebrew poets and Hebrew and Yiddish prose writers in the first half of the twentieth century. Stahl's nuanced and insightful historiography of modern Hebrew and Jewish literature will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in the role of Jesus in Jewish culture.

The Christ of Fish

The Christ of Fish
Author: Yoel Hoffmann
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 174
Release: 1999
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811214193

"Originally from Vienna, Hoffmann's heroine is a widow who still speaks German after decades in Israel. The myriad mini-chapters offer many views of Aunt Magda - her childhood, her marriage, her nephew, her best friend Frau Stier, Wildegans' poetry, apple strudel, visions and dreams, two stolen handbags, a favorite cafe, and a gentleman admirer."--BOOK JACKET.

Contemporary World Fiction

Contemporary World Fiction
Author: Juris Dilevko
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 554
Release: 2011-03-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1598849093

This much-needed guide to translated literature offers readers the opportunity to hear from, learn about, and perhaps better understand our shrinking world from the perspective of insiders from many cultures and traditions. In a globalized world, knowledge about non-North American societies and cultures is a must. Contemporary World Fiction: A Guide to Literature in Translation provides an overview of the tremendous range and scope of translated world fiction available in English. In so doing, it will help readers get a sense of the vast world beyond North America that is conveyed by fiction titles from dozens of countries and language traditions. Within the guide, approximately 1,000 contemporary non-English-language fiction titles are fully annotated and thousands of others are listed. Organization is primarily by language, as language often reflects cultural cohesion better than national borders or geographies, but also by country and culture. In addition to contemporary titles, each chapter features a brief overview of earlier translated fiction from the group. The guide also provides in-depth bibliographic essays for each chapter that will enable librarians and library users to further explore the literature of numerous languages and cultural traditions.

Ideology and Jewish Identity in Israeli and American Literature

Ideology and Jewish Identity in Israeli and American Literature
Author: Emily Miller Budick
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0791490149

By creating a dialogue between Israeli and American Jewish authors, scholars, and intellectuals, this book examines how these two literatures, which traditionally do not address one another directly, nevertheless share some commonalities and affinities. The disinclination of Israeli and American Jewish fictional narratives to gravitate toward one another tells us much about the processes of Jewish self-definition as expressed in literary texts over the last fifty years. Through essays by prominent Israeli Americanists, American Hebraists, Israeli critics of Hebrew writing, and American specialists in the field of Jewish writing, the book shows how modern Jewish culture rewrites the Jewish tradition across quite different ideological imperatives, such as Zionist metanarrative, the urge of Jewish immigrants to find Israel in America, and socialism. The contributors also explore how that narrative turn away from religious tradition to secular identity has both enriched and impoverished Jewish modernity.

Bibliotopia, Or, Mr. Gilbar's Book of Books & Catch-all of Literary Facts & Curiosities

Bibliotopia, Or, Mr. Gilbar's Book of Books & Catch-all of Literary Facts & Curiosities
Author:
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2005
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781567922950

What is the origin of the word "book"? What is the oldest working library still in existence? What is an "enchiridion"? An "amphigory"? A "duodecimo"? Which two Nobel laureates refused the prize in literature? How many trees must sacrifice their lives to produce a thousand copies of a 96-page volume of verse? These are some of the questions posed (and answered) in this fascinating farrago of literary trivia, a treasure trove of obscure and irresistible facts, definitions, lists, and quotations that touch on every aspect of books, including their authors, publishers, printers, collectors, critics, readers, and enemies. Under headings that explore the entire history of bibliomania from "The Invention of Paper" to "Some Horror Writers' Offcial Websites," the entries in Bibliotopia provide the insatiably curious reader a delightfully desultory literary education, the kind one might pick up at a cocktail party on Parnassus.

Bernhard

Bernhard
Author: Yoel Hoffmann
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1998
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780811213899

Set in 1940's Palestine, Bernhard concerns a German-Jewish widower.