From: Commonweal | Date: April 5, 1996| Author: Cohen, Carolyn | COPYRIGHT 1996 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

S. Y. Agnon, edited with introductions by Alan Mintz and Anne Golomb Hoffman Schocken Books, $27.50, 436 pp.

This collection of short stories by Nobel Prize-winner S. Y. Agnon presents a world remote to most readers. Many of the stories are folk tales in which the late Israeli writer conveys both his reverence for and ambivalence toward the Orthodox Jewish tradition that shaped his imagination. His childhood recollections of early twentieth century Jewish life in Hungary pro...