Among Yiddish prose writers of the early twentieth century, Dovid Bergelson (1884-1952) was a unique modernist voice. Born in Russia, he lived and traveled in Europe and the United States, but he finally moved to Moscow: in a world of conflicting ideologies and political unrest, he threw his lot in with Communism and the Soviet Union. He was executed in a post-World War II Stalinist purge of Jews. Joseph Sherman was a scholar of Yiddish literature. His publications include The Jewish Pope: Myth, Diaspora and Yiddish Literature and Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 333: Writers in Yiddish.
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"Even in English translation, Descent is a major contribution to Yiddish literature. Sherman enhances this edition with an excellent introductory essay and bibliography." Choice "Dovid Bergelson's Descent is one of the most striking products of a modernist literature seemingly lost in recent history. Translations of forward-looking Yiddish modernists like Sholem Asch and I. J. Singer once dominated the best-seller lists throughout the world. Joseph Sherman's readable, accessible translation of Bergelson's novel adds one more text to that canon and shows how valuable this canon is for any study of modern literature and culture, especially of the Jews of Europe." --Sander L. Gilman, University of Illinois, Chicago