Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories Vol. 3 (Loa #151): One Night in Brazil to the Death of Methuselah

By Isaac Bashevis Singer

Book Overview

In the wake of his receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978, Isaac Bashevis Singer published several volumes of short stories in collections that mingled recent work with previously untranslated stories written in Yiddish decades earlier. Stretching back to "The Jew from Babylon," a story first published in 1932, and gathering tales such as "Brother Beetle" and "There are No Coincidences" from the 1960s, the works collected in this Library of America volume, the third of three, serve as a retrospective view of Singer's achievement as a storyteller.

Collected Stories: One Night in Brazil to The Death of Methuselah also contains ten stories published in English translation for the first time, selected from the extensive collection of Singer's papers at the University of Texas. Ranging from "Between Shadows," an evocative, naturalistic sketch set in Warsaw, to the bittersweet melodrama "Morris and Timma," to the beguiling fable "Hershele and Hanele, or The Power of a Dream." These stories enrich our understanding of Singer as a writer. The volume also includes "The Bird," "My Adventures as an Idealist," "and "Exes," stories published in magazines that were not included in any of Singer's collections. Complementing the seventy-eight stories gathered here is the introduction to Gifts (1985), a version of a lecture Singer had delivered since the early 1960s--sometimes called "Why I Write as I Do"--which illuminates his biography, philosophical outlook, and literary aims.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931082634
• ISBN13: 9781931082631
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Library of America
• Length: 915 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.4" x 8.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The great master of the short- story

Why is Singer such a great story writer? One answer is that he really does tell stories which make the reader want to know what is going to happen next to the characters. But it is much more than that. His stories are filled with surprise. His characters are true originals, often so unexpectedly eccentric one cannot have any real idea of what they are going to do next. The world he writes in especially when he writes about the world of Polish Jewry is an incredible mixture of the old and the new. Longing , nostalgia, sadness, wonder, curiosity, lust, love pervade Singer's stories. He is perhaps of all writers I know the most Jewish. But the stories also speak powerfully to non- Jewish readers as they reveal the heart and soul of the human being and human condition. Even when he is not at his best (And I would argue the title story of this work is far from his best) he is very very good. And when he is good he is truly great. And what a pleasure to read.