10% off all books and free delivery over £40
Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.

From a Distant Relation

View All Editions

The selected edition of this book is not available to buy right now.
Add To Wishlist
Write A Review

About

From a Distant Relation Synopsis

In his short life (1865-1921), Micha Josef Berdichevsky was a versatile and influential man of letters: an innovative Hebrew prose stylist; a collector of Jewish folklore; a scholar of ancient Jewish and Christian history. He was at once a peer of the Brothers Grimm, Sholem Aleichem, Friedrich Nietzsche, and a diverse circle of Jewish writers in the Russian Empire and German-speaking countries. As a Yiddish writer, however, he remains largely unknown to gen­eral readers. Originally published in the 1920s, his stories were dismissed by prominent critics and viewed as out of step with the literary taste of his own time. Yet these vivid portraits of a small Jewish town (shtetl) in the southern Russian Empire can speak powerfully to audiences today. With enchanting humor, social satire, and verbal dexterity, From a Distant Relation captures the world of the shtetl in a sharp realist prose style. Themes of repressed desire, poverty, relations with non-Jews, and historic upheavals echo in a cast of memorable characters. Many of the stories and monologues feature strong female protagonists, while others shed light on the misogynistic culture of the shtetl. At the border between fiction and reportage, with a gritty underbelly and a deceptive naïveté, Berdichevsky's stories explore dynamics of wealth, power, and gender in an intimate setting that resonates profoundly with contemporary Jewish life.

About This Edition

ISBN: 9780815611363
Publication date: 30th December 2021
Author: Mikhah Yosef Berdichevsky
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Format: Paperback
Pagination: 448 pages
Series: Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art
Genres: Religious and spiritual fiction
Shorter Reads
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
Social groups: religious groups and communities
Language: reference and general