Singer's Typewriter and Mine

A cultural critic of extraordinary erudition encyclopedic knowledge and boundless curiosity Ilan Stavans an Ashkenazic Jew who grew up in Mexico negotiates wildly varied topics as effortlessly and deftly as he manages the multiple perspectives of a dual national religious and ethnic identity.In Singera's Typewriter and Mine a follow-up to The Inveterate Dreamer (Nebraska 2001) Stavans interweaves his own experience with that of other Jewish writers and thinkers past and present to explore modern Jewish culture across the boundaries of language and nation. Juxtaposing the personal and the analytical these essays and conversations take up the oeuvres of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Mario Vargas Llosa translation and Goda's language storytelling as midrash anti-Semitism in Hispanic America Yiddish and Sephardic literatures the connection between humor and terror impostors as cultural agents the creators of the King James Bible and the encounter between Jewish and Latino civilizations to name but a few of Stavansa's topics here. Funny engaging and provocative this collection continues Stavansa's project of opening new vistas in our cross-cultural understanding of language literature and life.