Text: English (translation) Original Language: Yiddish

Of all the characters in modern Jewish fiction, the most beloved is Tevye, the compassionate, irrepressible, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, who has been immortalized in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and in acclaimed and award-winning theatrical and film adaptations. And no Yiddish writer was more beloved than Tevye’s creator, Sholem Rabinovich (1859–1916), the “Jewish Mark Twain,” who wrote under the pen name of Sholem Aleichem. Beautifully translated by Hillel Halkin, here is Sholem Aleichem’s heartwarming and poignant account of Tevye and his daughters, together with the “Railroad Stories,” twenty-one tales that examine human nature and modernity as they are perceived by men and women riding the trains from shtetl to shtetl.

Innocence rounds the bend to experience in these beautifully shaped stories of Moscow and Brooklyn, which take up the worldview of the young and overlooked. The stunning Second World War story that opens the book is a masterpiece of ambivalence—about the simultaneous generosity and hypocrisy of Galina, a gentile Russian woman who offers safe harbor to a Jewish friend and her daughter during the German occupation. In “Love Lessons—Mondays, 9 A.M.,” a young math teacher is assigned to teach a girls’ sex education class, even though she herself is still awaiting her first kiss. And in “Mistress,” a boy newly arrived in this country bears witness to the intimate details of his grandparents’ new and diverging lives: his grandmother’s doctors’ appointments, where he is charged with translating her myriad complaints into English, and his grandfather’s clandestine courtship of another woman. Adept at both snapshots and long exposures, Lara Vapnyar, herself a recent immigrant, writes of life’s adventures and possibilities, its disappointments and unexpected turns, with delicate humor, brilliant timing, and striking emotional honesty. She is a writer to relish and to watch.

Originally published in 1913, When All Is Said and Done is one of the great novels of the twentieth century. Considered David Bergelson's masterpiece, it was written in Yiddish and until now has been unavailable in a complete and accurate English translation. This version by acclaimed translator Joseph Sherman finally brings the novel to a wide English-speaking audience. Bergelson depicts the lives of upwardly mobile, self-aware nouveaux riche Jews in the waning years of the Russian Empire. The central character, Mirel Hurvits, is an educated, beautiful woman who embodies the conflict between tradition and progress, aristocracy and enterprise. A forced marriage of convenience results in Mirel's emotional disintegration and provokes a confrontation with the expectations of her pious family and with Jewish tradition. In a unique prose style of unsurpassable range and beauty, Bergelson reduces language to its bare essentials, punctuated by silences that heighten the sense of alienation in the story.

It is late 1903, and Rachel and her family are leaving Russia to escape the murderous riots against Jews. They travel cross country on the Trans-Siberian Railway to the coast and board a ship for Shanghai. China offers refuge, but life for them there is difficult and strange. The opportunity to write for a Jewish newspaper may help Rachel ensure her family's survival while not giving up her dreams for her future. Still in Russia, Rachel's friend Sergei leaves home for a factory job in St. Petersburg, soon joining the rebelling workers, but realizing he has traded one source of danger for another. Separated by so much, the two teenagers try to make their way in the turbulent political times of the early twentieth century--their only connection the letters they write, and their fierce hope for the future.

Descent , a novella published in 1920, is set against the background of Jewish life in Russia and Ukraine during the turbulent period leading up to the October Revolution of 1917, a period characterized by the rise of secularism, the rejection of old traditions, the alienation of intellectuals, and the attempt of different generations to find a place for themselves inside and out of the shtetl. The novella centers on the mystery of the suicide of a young pharmacist in Rakitne, a provincial town. Did his death have anything to do with the two women who loved him? Was it the result of despair or an act of protest? And if protest, against what? His old friend seeks answers but finds none. The prose is immaculately crafted, the narrative indirect, and the mood poignant, dark, and disquieting.

"Rachel is a Jew living in Kishinev, Russia. At fourteen, Rachel knows that she wants more from life than the traditional role of wife and mother. She has dreams of being a writer. But everything is put on hold when a young Christian man is murdered and Rachel is forced to keep the murderer's identity a secret. Tensions mount as the Christians' distrust of the Jews is fueled by prejudice and rumour. While Rachel keeps the truth to herself, she watches as lies and anti-Jewish propaganda leap off the pages of the local newspaper, inciting Christians to riot against the Jews. Violence breaks out on Easter Sunday, 1903, and when it finally ends, Rachel finds that the person she loves most is dead and that her home has been destroyed. As she struggles to survive the aftermath of the riots-or pogroms-support comes from someone totally unexpected, when a young Christian named Sergei turns against his father, a police officer complicit in the riots, to help Rachel. With everything against them, the two young people find comfort in the bond that is growing between them, one of the few signs of goodness and hope in a time of chaos and violence."--Publisher's website.