Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son

by Aleichem, Sholem; Shevrin, Aliza; Miron, Dan

• ISBN13: 9780143105602
• ISBN10: 0143105604
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-27
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Tevye is the compassionate, lovable, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, and Tevye the Dairyman is a heartwarming and poignant account of life in turn-of-the-century Russia. Through the workaday world of a rural dairyman, his grit, wit, and heart, his daughters' courtships and marriages, and the eventual menace of the pogroms, Sholem Aleichem reveals the fabric of a now-vanished world. Motl is the clear-eyed, spirited, mischievous boy who narrates Motl the Cantor's Son, a comic novel about his emigration with his family from Russia to America. It is a journey that mirrors a larger exodus, telling the story of the disintegration of traditional Jewish life and the beginning of a new chapter of Jewish history in America.

Author Biography

Sholem Aleichem is the pen name of Sholem Rabinovitch (1859-û1916), the most beloved writer in Yiddish literature. Born in Russia, he fled the pogroms with his family and immigrated to New York in 1905. His funeral procession was witnessed by 100,000 mourners.

Aliza Shevrin is the foremost translator of Sholem Aleichem, having translated eight other volumes of his fiction.

Dan Miron is the William Kay Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.