The Worlds of I.B.Singer: Translation, Feuilleton, Life-Writing
This project examines how the Yiddish writer Yitskhok Bashevis (1902-1991) created English versions of his works under the name Isaac Bashevis Singer, which subsequently gained worldwide translation. I explore the nature of Singer’s literary worlds by combining four theoretical fields. This synthesis is the primary contribution to this study of Singer’s work, using innovative methodologies in the fields of world literature, translation, feuilleton and life-writing. It breaks new ground by delineating Singer’s works from the Yiddish press that were never translated or critically assessed. Through mapping and close readings of these untranslated works, I demonstrate how they can be employed to provide new innovative perspectives on Singer’s work and biography.
By revising Franco Moretti’s theories regarding the unequal relationship between literary center and periphery, I utilize the term ‘non-universal global’ (Levi and Schachter, 2017) to analyze Singer’s Yiddish and English work. The contrast between the cosmopolitan and the minority status highlights the duality of Singer’s work as both universal and indigenous. Singer took advantage of the disintegration of the Western literary network of center and periphery resulting from the immigrant, minority, and postcolonial trends that emerged following World War II. These created new paradigms for Singer’s world literature, based on a more fluid exchange of works in their original languages and translation.
By revising Franco Moretti’s theories regarding the unequal relationship between literary center and periphery, I utilize the term ‘non-universal global’ (Levi and Schachter, 2017) to analyze Singer’s Yiddish and English work. The contrast between the cosmopolitan and the minority status highlights the duality of Singer’s work as both universal and indigenous. Singer took advantage of the disintegration of the Western literary network of center and periphery resulting from the immigrant, minority, and postcolonial trends that emerged following World War II. These created new paradigms for Singer’s world literature, based on a more fluid exchange of works in their original languages and translation.
Final report
During my one-year RJ Sabbatical July 1, 2022 - July 1, 2023, I completed five of the nine chapters of my book project, The Worlds of I.B. Singer: Translation, Feuilleton, Life-Writing. The research for the remaining four chapters was also completed. It synthesized the four parts of my research for the book based on the digital files of manuscripts and other documents that I collected during my research visits to the I.B. Singer archives at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin (UT). Below, I have listed the five completed book chapters marked with a (C):
Introduction
Part One: Warsaw, New York, Stockholm
Chapter 1: Interwar Warsaw – In the World of Chaos: Early Writings (C)
Chapter 2: New York – The Sufferings of a Polygamous Werther (C)
Chapter 3: Stockholm - Nobel Prize, 1978
Part Two: Feuilletons
Chapter 4: At the Forverts
Chapter 5: From Feuilletons to Global Circulation (C)
Part Three: Translation and Ghostwriting
Chapter 6: The Year 1943: Demons and the Supernatural
Chapter 7: The Art of Ghost-writing (C)
Part Four: Life-writing
Chapter 8: The Singers - A Family of Writers
Chapter 9: A Jewish Storyteller’s Spiritual Quest
Epilogue: Afterlife
I am the editor of the forthcoming edition of Singer’s early writings. A revised version of my introduction to the edition will be included in the book as chapter 1. The edition consists of 45 pieces from Singer’s early period as a journalist and writer in Warsaw, 1923-1935 and New York, 1935-1937. The pieces have been translated by a group of eight professional translators for which I raised the funds. The edition of more than five hundred pages will be published in 2024 or 2025.
Chapter 2 is a revised version of my published article about the novel Der man fun khaloymes (The Man of Dreams) serialized in the Yiddish newspaper the Forward in 1971 (see publication list). Chapter 3 has been fully research through interviews with Dorothea Bromberg, the main publisher of Singer’s work in Swedish, and my afterword to the German edition of the novel Jarme and Kayle about prostitutes and pimps in pre-World War One Warsaw. Singer decided to withhold the publication of this controversial novel with sexually explicit language around the time he received the Nobel Prize which exemplifies his self-fashioning as a world writer.
Part two focuses on Singer’s work as a journalist at the main Yiddish newspaper in New York, the Forverts. I have contributed an entry to the research project ‘Below the Line: The Feuilleton and Modern Jewish Cultures’ (see publication list) about a Singer feuilleton about his father’s rabbinical court. Chapter four is a longer version of this commentary, and chapter five is a revised version of my 2020 published article (see publication list). Part three examines Singer’s particular translation methodology or ghost writing as a bilingual Yiddish-English writer. Chapter 6 zooms in on the year 1943 in the life and work of Singer: he gets married, becomes an American citizen, staff writer at the Forverts, and publishes his breakthrough collection Satan in Goray and other Stories. This volume which includes a series of monologues narrated by the Evil One becomes Singer’s signature work. Chapter 7 is a revised version of my published 2020 article (see publication list).
In part four I address Singer’s extensive life-writing and relationships with his two siblings I.J. Singer and Esther Kreitman, both of whom were Yiddish writers. I have organized a symposium in Stockholm December 2-3, 2023, The Singers – A Family of Writers (see publication list) which will provide material for a separate publication about the the Singer family of writers. In chapter eight I discuss the philosophical and religious origins of Singer’s spiritual quest based on my findings in the Harry Ransom Center. In the epilogue, I outline new trends in Singer research explored in the forthcoming special issue of the journal Studies in American Jewish Literature, ‘Beyond Canonization: The Contested Legacy of Isaac Bashevis Singer’ which I am editing with Zehavit Stern (Tel Aviv University) (see publication list).
The sabbatical has greatly supported the progress of my book project. I used part of the time during the sabbatical to complete the editing of the edition of his Early Writings that has informed the writing of chapter one. The research and writing of the book chapters also benefited from my collaboration with scholars and curators who participated in to the March 27-29, 2022 conference, ‘New Approaches to I.B.Singer’ which I organized jointly with the Jewish Studies program at UT and the Harry Ransom Center (HRC). In connection with the conference, I curated an exhibit at the HRC which displayed selected documents and manuscripts from the Singer collection. I plan to complete the final four chapters, the introduction and epilogue and submit the book manuscript to a publisher by May 31, 2024.
Introduction
Part One: Warsaw, New York, Stockholm
Chapter 1: Interwar Warsaw – In the World of Chaos: Early Writings (C)
Chapter 2: New York – The Sufferings of a Polygamous Werther (C)
Chapter 3: Stockholm - Nobel Prize, 1978
Part Two: Feuilletons
Chapter 4: At the Forverts
Chapter 5: From Feuilletons to Global Circulation (C)
Part Three: Translation and Ghostwriting
Chapter 6: The Year 1943: Demons and the Supernatural
Chapter 7: The Art of Ghost-writing (C)
Part Four: Life-writing
Chapter 8: The Singers - A Family of Writers
Chapter 9: A Jewish Storyteller’s Spiritual Quest
Epilogue: Afterlife
I am the editor of the forthcoming edition of Singer’s early writings. A revised version of my introduction to the edition will be included in the book as chapter 1. The edition consists of 45 pieces from Singer’s early period as a journalist and writer in Warsaw, 1923-1935 and New York, 1935-1937. The pieces have been translated by a group of eight professional translators for which I raised the funds. The edition of more than five hundred pages will be published in 2024 or 2025.
Chapter 2 is a revised version of my published article about the novel Der man fun khaloymes (The Man of Dreams) serialized in the Yiddish newspaper the Forward in 1971 (see publication list). Chapter 3 has been fully research through interviews with Dorothea Bromberg, the main publisher of Singer’s work in Swedish, and my afterword to the German edition of the novel Jarme and Kayle about prostitutes and pimps in pre-World War One Warsaw. Singer decided to withhold the publication of this controversial novel with sexually explicit language around the time he received the Nobel Prize which exemplifies his self-fashioning as a world writer.
Part two focuses on Singer’s work as a journalist at the main Yiddish newspaper in New York, the Forverts. I have contributed an entry to the research project ‘Below the Line: The Feuilleton and Modern Jewish Cultures’ (see publication list) about a Singer feuilleton about his father’s rabbinical court. Chapter four is a longer version of this commentary, and chapter five is a revised version of my 2020 published article (see publication list). Part three examines Singer’s particular translation methodology or ghost writing as a bilingual Yiddish-English writer. Chapter 6 zooms in on the year 1943 in the life and work of Singer: he gets married, becomes an American citizen, staff writer at the Forverts, and publishes his breakthrough collection Satan in Goray and other Stories. This volume which includes a series of monologues narrated by the Evil One becomes Singer’s signature work. Chapter 7 is a revised version of my published 2020 article (see publication list).
In part four I address Singer’s extensive life-writing and relationships with his two siblings I.J. Singer and Esther Kreitman, both of whom were Yiddish writers. I have organized a symposium in Stockholm December 2-3, 2023, The Singers – A Family of Writers (see publication list) which will provide material for a separate publication about the the Singer family of writers. In chapter eight I discuss the philosophical and religious origins of Singer’s spiritual quest based on my findings in the Harry Ransom Center. In the epilogue, I outline new trends in Singer research explored in the forthcoming special issue of the journal Studies in American Jewish Literature, ‘Beyond Canonization: The Contested Legacy of Isaac Bashevis Singer’ which I am editing with Zehavit Stern (Tel Aviv University) (see publication list).
The sabbatical has greatly supported the progress of my book project. I used part of the time during the sabbatical to complete the editing of the edition of his Early Writings that has informed the writing of chapter one. The research and writing of the book chapters also benefited from my collaboration with scholars and curators who participated in to the March 27-29, 2022 conference, ‘New Approaches to I.B.Singer’ which I organized jointly with the Jewish Studies program at UT and the Harry Ransom Center (HRC). In connection with the conference, I curated an exhibit at the HRC which displayed selected documents and manuscripts from the Singer collection. I plan to complete the final four chapters, the introduction and epilogue and submit the book manuscript to a publisher by May 31, 2024.