Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Recovering Yiddishland: Threshold Moments in American Literature

by Merle L. Bachman
Sold out
₹3,130.00
Original price ₹3,130.00
Original price ₹3,130.00
₹3,130.00
Current price ₹3,130.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9780815631514
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Syracuse University Press
  • Publisher Imprint: Syracuse University Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 356
  • Original Price: USD 29.95
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 631 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Jewish

According to traditional narratives of assimilation, in the bargain made for an American identity, Jews freely surrendered Yiddish language and culture. Or did they? Recovering "Yiddishland" seeks to "return" readers to a threshold where Americanization also meant ambivalence and resistance. It reconstructs "Yiddishland" as a cultural space produced by Yiddish immigrant writers from the 1890s through the 1930s, largely within the sphere of New York.

Rejecting conventional literary history, the book spotlights "threshold texts" in the unjustly forgotten literary project of these writers--texts that reveal unexpected and illuminating critiques of Americanization. Merle Lyn Bachman takes a fresh look at Abraham Cahan's Yekl and Anzia Yezierska's Hungry Hearts, tracing in them a re-inscription of the Yiddish world that various characters seem to be committed to leaving behind. She also translates for the first time Yiddish poems featuring African-Americans that reflect the writers' confrontation with their passage, as Jews, into "white" identities.

Finally, Bachman discusses the modernist poet Mikhl Likht, whose simultaneous embrace of American literature and resistance to assimilating into English marked him as the supreme "threshold" poet. Conscious of the risks of any postmodern--"post-assimilation"--attempt to recover the past, Bachman invents the figure of "the Yiddish student," whose comments can reflect--and keep in check--the nostalgia and naivete of the returnee to Yiddish.

Merle L. Bachman is a poet and assistant professor of English at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us