Synopses & Reviews
Review
Bursteins work will leave many readers amazed at the quantity and quality of the American Jewish contribution to contemporary literature.”Andrew Furman, author of Contemporary Jewish-American Writers and the Multicultural Dilemma: Return of the Exiled
Review
Lucid, sophisticated, intelligent. Burstein shows how contemporary Jewish American writing grapples in new and complicated ways with issues of trauma and identity.”Sara Horowitz, Centre for Jewish Studies, York University, Toronto
Synopsis
Janet Burstein argues that American Jewish writers since the 1980s have created a significant literature by wrestling with the troubled legacy of trauma, loss, and exile. Their ranks include Cynthia Ozick, Todd Gitlin, Art Spiegelman, Pearl Abraham, Aryeh Lev Stollman, Jonathan Rosen, and Gerda Lerner. Whether confronting the massive losses of the Holocaust, the sense of “home” in exile, or the continuing power of Jewish memory, these Jewish writers search for understanding within “the little secrets” of their dark, complicated, and richly furnished past.
About the Author
Janet Handler Burstein is professor of English at Drew University and chair of the Modern Literature section of the Association for Jewish Studies. She is the author of Writing Mothers, Writing Daughters: Tracing the Maternal in Stories by American Jewish Women