Novel
Foiglman
פויגלמן
Aharon Megged · 1987
Synopsis
Zvi Arbel, an Israeli historian of European Jewry, pessimistic and reserved, is married to Nora, a biologist, a refugee from Germany in her childhood. He befriends Shmuel Foiglman, a Yiddish poet living in Paris, a survivor of the massacres, exuberant and tormented. Both fascinated and irritated, Arbel finds a Hebrew translator and publisher for his poems, and pays out of his own pocket. Foiglman gradually takes up all his time; Nora feels a repulsion toward him that nothing will make her give up, and the household, peaceful until then, begins to fall apart.
Context
Megged had behind him an abundant body of work when this novel appeared, in 1987, the same year as a collection of short stories. The book sets the Hebrew of Israel against the Yiddish of the diaspora: Arbel judges that Foiglman's poetry reaches its height only in Yiddish, while having it translated. Rosie Pinhas-Delpuech translated it into French in 1997; the English translation by Marganit Weinberger-Rotman, in 2003, received the Koret Jewish Book Award in the United States.
Who it is for
A novel of about three hundred and fifty pages in French. It is better to know what Yiddish was, the language of the Jews of Eastern Europe, as against the language of the new State.
Prizes and reception
Awarded a prize in the United States in its English version, in 2004; translated into French as early as 1997, six years before the English.
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