In this English translation of the 1993 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize winner Dulcinea encantada (1992) by Mexican author Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, Dulcinea travels in a car writing novels in her mind about several Dulcineas: a medieval princess on a quest, a nineteenth-century lady-in-waiting in Mexico, and a twentieth-century young woman who was sent to Russia as a girl to escape the Spanish Civil War and later journeys to Mexico to reunite with her parents. Unsure of her identity, Dulcinea remembers, debates, and records memories of her exile. As she circles Mexico City, she examines the role of memory, speech, and writing through her fragmented narrative voice. Dulcinea explores her place in the world through storytelling, blurring the line between reality and imagination. This novel pairs a lyrical and contemplative style with experimental writing to present common themes of identity formation and exile in a unique form. Dulcinea’s quest is also one of spiritual connection with apocalyptic and mystical overtones. With allusions to both Christian and Jewish mystical traditions, this novel reveals a crypto-Jewish presence typical of Muñiz-Huberman’s writing, forming part of a Sephardic literary tradition. This edition includes an introduction and annotations by the translator, Rebecca Marquis.

Jungk gives a profound meditation on a Jewish family and its past, especially the lasting distorting effects on a son of a famous, vital father and a clinging, overwhelming mother, and of the differences between the generation of European intellectual refugees who arrived in the United States during the Second World War and the children of that generation.

From Kirkus Reviews paper 0-8142-0780-4 A second collection from English professor (U. of Mass.) and critic Clayton, the first winner of the Sandstone Prize for Short Fiction. Clayton's new volume is, in many ways, a maturing of the concerns of his previous collection. As in Bodies of the Rich (1984), he focuses on the minutiae of daily life as a reflection of the ways in which his intelligent, middle-class protagonists express and experience loss. In Radiance, the protagonists are almost all Jews, assimilated to varying degrees but aware of and generally comfortable with their ethnic/religious identity. What they arent comfortable with is their lives--marriage as an act of settling for less, marriages that are failing or have long since dissolved, friends and family who die, parents who commit suicide. For several of his low-key heroes--in ``Glory,'' ``Open-Heart Surgery,'' and the most fully realized piece here, ``The Man Who Could See Radiance''--coping with loss takes the form of a sort of magic realist device in which people see and feel beyond their senses, becoming aware of a larger presence that may be understood as having a religious significance. The use of this device in three stories out of only ten, though, makes for a certain repetitiveness. Two tales, ``Muscles'' and ``Time Exposure,'' about episodes in an unhappy marriage that involves the husband's domineering brotherall as experienced by the couples sonhave the feeling of sketches for a novel-in-progress; theyre affecting but seem unfinished. Still, Clayton's best, ``Talking to Charlie'' and ``History Lessons,'' have a poignance that comes from an intense sensitivity to the quiet suffering that most often goes unexpressed in the rush of daily life. Uneven but distinctive short fiction from an author with a genuine gift. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Product Description A collection of short stories about the lives of assimilated American Jews, who attempt to reach an opening into the spiritual realm while dealing with unsuccessful marriages, middle-class life, and the unhappiness of existence Review ...[Clayton writes] with compassion, simplicity and power... -- The New York Times Book Review, Patrick Farrell

Part Bildungsroman, part hymn to the city of Glasgow, Jericho Sleep Alone is without a doubt the finest book written about the Scots-Jewish experience. From Bar Mitzvah to an unfulfilling teaching career, Jericho Eli Broock finds himself a perennial outsider and unlucky in love, neither his on-off affair with the flighty Ninna or his financially prudent dalliance with the homely Camilla coming to fruition. Will the sometimes oppressive aid of the Jewish community make all well in his world?

"Michael Kuperman's innovative company, Fusion, is on the cusp of a hoped-for merger when he's informed of something rotten with Chemicorp, a major factor in the deal: the company is making legal-to-produce chemicals specifically for clients with nefarious purposes, and the bad guys will do anything to protect their secrets. The actions of Michael's maternal grandfather, Jacob Goldstein, guide Michael in thinking about what to do next."--Amazon.com

The acclaimed author of Original Cyn finds fertile ground for her wicked wit in this ferociously funny new novel about babies, sex, celebrity...and daring to date a gynecologist. Ruby (still single at thirty-two) Silverman has made a name for herself at Les Sprogs, her exclusive baby boutique where trust-fund mothers swaddle their infants in the hottest designer wear. But all those bumps and babes can’t prepare Ruby for the bombshell her fifty-year-old mother drops on her: Ruby’s about to get…a baby brother or sister! When Ruby recovers from the shock of her mother’s pregnancy, she can’t help but question her own baby-making future. Is catering to celebrity moms and cooing over her friends’ kids all she has to look forward to? Sam Epstien would passionately disagree. He’s the gorgeous Jewish gynecologist who has set his amorous sights on her. Soon they’re seriously involved, and life seems to be looking up for Ruby. Until she stumbles upon a shady baby-brokering business that could erupt into a major scandal, derail her career, and maybe even force her to toss the supposedly perfect man out with the bathwater.

"This Darkness Will Never End, the first short story collection by the Hungarian-born author Edith Bruck, was published to acclaim in Italy in 1962. After World War II, Bruck, a Holocaust survivor, settled in Rome where she wrote her fable-like stories, recounting the lives of poor Jewish families in Europe before, during, and immediately following the war. In the title story, believed by some film scholars to have inspired the Oscar-winning movie Life Is Beautiful, a young girl shepherds her blind, sickly brother as they are deported. In "Matzoh Bread," a child gets a painful glimpse of anti-Semitism when a friend tells her a legend about the unleavened bread Jews eat at Passover. In one of the more colorful stories, a hapless father whose business partners swindle him over a horse only tells the truth when he's talking in his sleep. Beautifully translated from the Italian by Jeanne Bonner, these stories offer a glimpse into a bygone world. They testify to the resilience of survivors like Bruck, whom Italian critics initially compared to Anne Frank, deeming her the writer Anne would have become had she survived." -- Back cover.

A whirling top most of his life, Michael Goldberg's world changes when his dying shrink bequeaths to him the tapes of thirty years of Michael's therapy sessions. The tapes give Michael a second chance in middle age: they unlock his life for him, as a gallery of absurd and touching characters, events and scenes spring out of his past: the shrink who cracks up and reverses roles with Michael when his wife dies; a first love encountered again in desperate, ravaged middle age; a Communist Party leader who "would rather be a lamppost in Moscow than President of the United States"; a "glistening failure" of a father who is a cheerleader of Michael's defeat ("You can fail, Michael, if you try! I did it, why can't you?"); the fetish porn-drenched world of old TImes Square; a Holocaust survivor Michael meets on September 11th who cannot confront his experience; a Hollywood of elderly Jewish moguls, scholarly and bizarre, "who seemed to have been shipped fresh to California from New York like onion bagels or seeded bialies"---- men like Michael's mentor, Julius Birnbach, creator of the cult classic, The Curse of the Evil Midgets. As Michael reclaims his life, The Great Kisser becomes a story of gratitude ---- of many kisses ---- by its climax ...

Text: English, Hebrew (translation)

..". Urbanog sadrzaja, sa odnosima koji pocivaju na srodstvima, ljubavima, brakovima, stradanjima i potucanjima Jevreja i Srba, njeni romani prvenstveno obradjuju zivot u gradjanskim krugovima. Tu se govore razni jezici, tu se rado i cesto putuje, susrecu se bezbrojni ljudi i glavne zivotne teme nalaze iskljucivo u okvirima porodicnih, drustvenih i intelektualnih dodira. U preobilju likova i mnostvu epizoda, romani Gordane Kuic neprimetno odrazavaju jedinstvenu unutrasnju nit koju cini osobena balkanska jevrejska nostalgija, jaka duhovna i emotivna vezanost sarajevskih i beogradskih Jevreja za zavicaj. U romanima Gordane Kuic Jevreji se javljaju kao nosioci tradicionalnih gradjanskih i urbanih vrednosti i plemenitih starosedelackih spona medju ljudima koji su na istome tlu dugo delili zajednicku istorijsku kob." - Predrag Palavestra, Jevrejski pisci u srpskoj knjizevnosti

Cowan, Paul

"[...]ecclesiastical council. It numbered 70 like the Council of Elders appointed by Moses (Exodus xxiv, 1). Thus it happened when all political power was taken, from the Jews, the presentation of religion through the forms of law very naturally survived. There is yet another reason for Judaism being interpreted as Law, which touches the genius of Judaism. Judaism has always been less a faith to be confessed than a life to be lived. The emphasis was laid on deed rather than on dogma, on law rather than creed. We shall later see (p. 133) that it was on this very distinction that Christianity broke away from the parent religion to become a separate Faith. The reduction of religion to law had its abuses as well as its excellences. It led to the multiplication of ceremonials. The laws of ritual cleanliness, especially[...]".

"[...] Happy, however, as the people appeared to be in again beholding the house of God reared and dedicated to his holy worship, they still felt and saw the deficiency in the one, when compared with the other; for it must be observed, that in the second temple but few of the glories remained which had adorned the first temple, so renowned in history for its beauty, magnificence, and architectural delicacy and elegance. The temple erected by king Solomon at Jerusalem, was built after the model of the tabernacle erected in the wilderness. This superb edifice was completed in about seven years. Its grandeur and magnificence excited the envy and the curiosity of all the surrounding nations.[...]".

From the author who brought you Spin Cycle and Neurotica comes a hilarious new novel about falling in love, hating your job, and getting what you want out of life---without ever mussing your lipstick! When it comes to men, beauty columnist Rebecca Fine always seems to be on the scruffy end of the mascara wand. But all that changes the morning she meets Max Stoddart, her new colleague at the "Daily Vanguard. With his upscale suit, Hugh Grant hair, and obscenely sexy good looks, he's a single woman's dream come true. Finally, her grandmother can stop surfing the Net for eligible Jewish males. But is Max the catch of the decade---or just a major babe magnet? Meanwhile, Rebecca's old high school nemesis has resurfaced, a former blond bombshell called Lipstick who is now engaged to Rebecca's widowed dad. And it's good-bye to articles on toe cleavage when a hot tip sweeps Rebecca to the center of the Paris cosmetics world, where a miracle anti-wrinkle cream is about to be launched. That is, until she blows the whistle on a scandal that could set the beauty business---and the future of world peace---reeling. Will Rebecca win the recognition---not to mention the Pulitzer---she yearns for...and get the man of her dreams? Stay tuned. "From the Trade Paperback edition.

In Light of My Eye, Paula Jacques, born in Egypt, recreates the vanished world of cosmopolitan Cairo with remembered affection and amusing dialogue. Her novel depicts the turbulent waning days of its once thriving Jewish community, during the strange and ominous time between the collapse of the Egyptian monarchy and Nasser's rise to power. At its center are the pre-adolescent Mona Castro and her family, whose lives and destinies the author evokes in a series of scenes that veer between poignancy and wit. Mona's coming of age is marked by her youthful rebellion against her domineering mother, Becky; the illness of the beloved family patriarch, Joucky; and her half-innocent dalliance with an older man, a refugee from eastern Europe. The surrounding ensemble of relatives, whose family gatherings attempt to cope with a history that will overwhelm them, shifts the focus from Mona' s tale to a chronicle of a proud, doomed family.

In this classic love story featuring passion, jealousy and murder, and set in pre-World War II Iraq, Farida, a Jewish woman and cabaret singer, struggles for survival and her freedom in a world on the edge of upheaval and on which falls the dark shadow of war.