Singer, Isaac Bashevis

Singer, Isaac Bashevis (1904–91),Polish‐born author of Yiddish fiction, descendant of rabbis, like his elder brother, Israel Joshua Singer, turned from a rabbinical background to a career as a writer. In 1935 he followed his brother to New York City, where he became a journalist, writing in Yiddish for the Jewish Daily Forward, in which he has also published most of his fiction. His work deals mostly with the exotic heritage of Polish Jews, their traditional faith and folkways, their daily village life, their mysticism, their colorful personal relationships, their religious fanaticism, and their sexuality. His first major work, Satan in Goray (Yiddish, 1935; English, 1955) treats the aftermath of a 17th‐century polish pogrom, when the remaining Jews turned to a messianic sect with mystic and erotic beliefs. The first of his books to appear in English (and all dates following refer to first publications in English) was The Family Moskat (1950), realistically presenting the degeneration of a Jewish family in Warsaw from the turn of the 20th century to World War II. This was followed by The Magician of Lublin (1960) and The Slave (1962), portrayals of diverse aspects of Jewish character in Poland. The Manor (1967) and The Estate (1969), its sequel, chronicle the lives of Polish Jews during the latter half of the 19th century. Enemies (1970) is his first novel set in the U.S., about a Polish Jew who, out of gratitude, marries the girl who helped him escape the Nazis after he believes his wife is dead, takes a mistress whom he bigamously weds when she becomes pregnant, and then discovers that his first wife has also escaped from Poland to New York. In Shosha (1978) Singer returned to treat the ghetto life of Poland before World War II. The Penitent (1983) is a lesser and a less compassionate novel. His last novel, Scum (1991), is also set in the prewar Polish‐Jewish community of the shtetl. Two posthumously published novels, The Certificate (1992)and Meshugah (1994), were first published serially in the Jewish Daily Forward.

His stories are generally even more esteemed than his longer fiction, portraying more pungently the lives of curious characters in their ghetto settings in situations marked by fantasy and humor. His collections include Gimpel the Fool (1957), whose title tale was translated by Saul Bellow, about an innocent man gulled by his shrewish wife and all the world; The Spinoza of Market Street (1961); Short Friday (1964); Zlateh the Goat (1966); The Séance (1968); A Friend of Kafka (1970); A Crown of Feathers (1973); and Passions (1978). Collected Stories (1982) contains 47 of these tales. Later he wrote The Death of Methuselah (1985), inspired by Jewish folklore and legend.

Singer has also written books for children, including When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw (1968), folk tales, and A Day of Pleasure (1970), reminiscences of his own childhood. His memoirs include In My Father's Court (1966), an adult version of A Day of Pleasure; A Little Boy in Search of God (1976); A Young Man in Search of Love (1978); Lost in America (1981); and Love and Exile (1984). In 1978 he was awarded a Nobel Prize.