Hamilton Books
Pages: 120
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7618-7182-8 • Paperback • March 2020 • $34.99 • (£30.00)
978-0-7618-7183-5 • eBook • March 2020 • $33.00 • (£25.00)
Joshua A. Fogel is Canada research chair and professor of history at York University. His work encompasses the cultural dimension of Sino-Japanese relations. His scholarly interests also include translation as a practice and Yiddish biography.
Linda/Leye Lipsky teaches literature in the Department of Humanities at York University. She has written critical appreciations of Avrom Liessin, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, others. She has a specific interest in the interrelations of literature and philosophy, the crosscurrents of poetry and the visual arts.
Introduction, Joshua A. Fogel & Linda/Leye Lipsky
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About the Translators
Willy is a small gem of a novel by a master story-teller, lovingly and compellingly translated into English by Joshua Fogel and Linda Lipsky, with an informative introduction by Linda Lipsky. Largely overlooked among Singer's work, Willy is an engrossing and ironic parable of Jewish immigration to America in the early 20th century, its costs and advantages, as filtered through the consciousness of a Jewish farmer, who, no matter how hard he tries to escape his Jewishness, nor how far he travels, cannot shake the tug of the Old Country and the demands of his family. A valuable addition to those of Singer's works already translated into English.
— Goldie Morgentaler, professor, University of Lethbridge
This capacious novella depicts a world in transition seen through the lens of family, social and religious traditions: the reader follows Willy and his constellation from Jewish Shtetl to farm and city in America, all drawn in vivid strokes. The novella’s wide-ranging, masterful introduction as well as the faithful and fluent translation—an echo of the original Yiddish—further add to its assured place in the canon of Jewish literature.
— Frieda Forman, editor of The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers