"This volume collects essays by eastern European Jewish writers all now living and working in the US: Norman Manea and Matei Calinescu from Romania, Henryk Grynberg and Katarzyna Jerzak from Poland, Lara Vapnyar and Dov-Ber Kerler from Russia, Zsuzsanna Ozsvath from Hungary, and Bronislava Volkova from Czechoslovakia. Rosenfeld (Indiana Univ., Bloomington) also includes a memoir by German-born literary critic Geoffrey Hartman about his long search for his Jewish origins, and an essay on immigrant writers by critic Morris Dickstein. A brief introduction by Rosenfeld and an afterword by Eva Hoffman, the author of Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (1989), complete the volume. The important issues of exile, from place and from language, are discussed from various viewpoints, though always more autobiographically than analytically. The organization of the book is curious: the opening piece, by Manea, is followed by Calinescu's discussion of Manea's memoir The Hooligan's Return (2003); Grynberg's autobiographical piece is followed by Jerzak's essay on both his and Manea's writing. Neither Hartman's account nor Dickstein's quite fits with the rest of the materialbut doubtless this arises because the book comprises the proceedings of a conference. Despite these oddities, this is a worthwhile read. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, general readers. Choice"
from the afterword by Eva Hoffman
The essays in this richly revealing and valuable collection are reports from a late stage and distinct kind of exile, one marked by stark dramas and quiet ambiguities. As these personal and subtle statements show, each emigrant story, and trajectory, is unique and filled with its particular details of difficulty and success, private sorrow and unexpected satisfactions.
H. I. Needler]]>
This volume collects essays by eastern European Jewish writers all now living and working in the US: Norman Manea and Matei Calinescu from Romania, Henryk Grynberg and Katarzyna Jerzak from Poland, Lara Vapnyar and Dov-Ber Kerler from Russia, Zsuzsanna Ozsvath from Hungary, and Bronislava Volkova from Czechoslovakia. Rosenfeld (Indiana Univ., Bloomington) also includes a memoir by German-born literary critic Geoffrey Hartman about his long search for his Jewish origins, and an essay on immigrant writers by critic Morris Dickstein. A brief introduction by Rosenfeld and an afterword by Eva Hoffman, the author of Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (1989), complete the volume. The important issues of exile, from place and from language, are discussed from various viewpoints, though always more autobiographically than analytically. The organization of the book is curious: the opening piece, by Manea, is followed by Calinescu's discussion of Manea's memoir The Hooligan's Return (2003); Grynberg's autobiographical piece is followed by Jerzak's essay on both his and Manea's writing. Neither Hartman's account nor Dickstein's quite fits with the rest of the materialbut doubtless this arises because the book comprises the proceedings of a conference. Despite these oddities, this is a worthwhile read. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, general readers. Choice
H. I. Needler
This volume collects essays by eastern European Jewish writers all now living and working in the US: Norman Manea and Matei Calinescu from Romania, Henryk Grynberg and Katarzyna Jerzak from Poland, Lara Vapnyar and Dov-Ber Kerler from Russia, Zsuzsanna Ozsvath from Hungary, and Bronislava Volkova from Czechoslovakia. Rosenfeld (Indiana Univ., Bloomington) also includes a memoir by German-born literary critic Geoffrey Hartman about his long search for his Jewish origins, and an essay on immigrant writers by critic Morris Dickstein. A brief introduction by Rosenfeld and an afterword by Eva Hoffman, the author of Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (1989), complete the volume. The important issues of exile, from place and from language, are discussed from various viewpoints, though always more autobiographically than analytically. The organization of the book is curious: the opening piece, by Manea, is followed by Calinescu's discussion of Manea's memoir The Hooligan's Return (2003); Grynberg's autobiographical piece is followed by Jerzak's essay on both his and Manea's writing. Neither Hartman's account nor Dickstein's quite fits with the rest of the material—but doubtless this arises because the book comprises the proceedings of a conference. Despite these oddities, this is a worthwhile read. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, general readers. —Choice