"Once Jews no longer obeyed the imperatives of their religion, they were virtually obliged to create new forms of identity, turning accommodation from means to end. Literature was a proving ground for the reinvention of the self. One-tenth of the Nobel Prize winners for literature in the twentieth century were born Jews, but only two of them-Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1966) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978)-wrote in a Jewish language and only about half thought of themselves as Jews."
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Novelists from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesPlaywrights from the United StatesPlaywrights from PolandNovelists from Poland
Original Language: English
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Sources
Ruth Wisse The Modern Jewish Canon (2000)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Bashevis_Singer
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Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer (Yiddish: יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער or יצחק בת־שבֿעס זינגער; pseudonym: Icek Hersz Zynger; born 21 November 1902 as Icek Zynger, died 24 July 1991) was a Polish-American writer of short stories and novels in Yiddish; he used his mother's name in devising his pe
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