 | The Glatstein Chronicles This seminal American work from the Yiddish literary canon, in a restored English edition, offers the luminous narrative of the author's journey home to his Polish birthplace Glatstein's accounts "stretch like a tightrope across a chasm," writes preeminent Yiddish scholar Ruth Wisse in the Introduction. In Book One, "Homeward Bound," the narrator, Yash, recounts his voyage to his birthplace in Poland and the array of international travelers he meets along the way. Book Two, "Homecoming at Twilight," resumes after his mother's funeral and ends with Yash's impending return to the United States, a Jew with an American passport who recognizes the ominous history he is traversing. The Glatstein Chronicles is at once insightful reportage of the year after Hitler came to power, reflection by a leading intellectual on contemporary culture and events, and the closest thing we have to a memoir by the boy from Lublin, Poland, who became one of the finest poets of the twentieth century. Born in Lublin, Poland, Glatstein emigrated to the United States in 1914 and lived there until his death. One of the major figures in modern Yiddish poetry, Glatstein cultivated free verse and poetry closely related to the reality of contemporary events and society. A master of the Yiddish language, he created poems that became classic expressions of Jewish attitudes and reactions to the tragic events of the Holocaust. He also wrote brilliant prose; especially remarkable are two accounts of a trip to Europe on the eve of World War II. (Bowker Author Biography) |
