Isaac Bashevis Singer

@Short Story Writers, Facts and Family

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Poland-born Jewish-American writer and the winner of Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978

Nov 21, 1902

Nobel Laureates In LiteratureAmericanPolishWritersNovelistsShort Story WritersScorpio Celebrities
Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: November 21, 1902
  • Died on: July 24, 1991
  • Nationality: Polish, American
  • Famous: Nobel Laureates In Literature, Writers, Novelists, Short Story Writers
  • Spouses: Alma Wassermann (m. 1940)
  • Siblings: Esther Kreitman, Israel Joshua Singer
  • Childrens: Israel Zamir

Isaac Bashevis Singer born at

Leoncin, Congress Poland

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Birth Place

Between 1926 and 1935, he lived with Runia Shapira, a rabbi’s daughter and a Communist who was expelled from the USSR for supporting the Zionists. The couple were never married but had a son named Israel Zamir, born in 1929. The couple got separated when Singer moved to USA in 1935 while Runia moved to Moscow and finally to Palestine along with her son.

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Personal Life

He met Alma Wassermann in 1938. Their relationship became intimate and Alma divorced her husband Wassermann and married Singer in 1940.

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Personal Life

He had affairs with several women including Dvora Menashe, a Hispanic maid, Lester Goran, his colleague at the University of Miami and Dvora Menashe, his assistant. His wife Alma endured his infidelity patiently.

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Personal Life

He was one of the four children born to Rabbi Pincus Menachem and Bathsheba Zylberman. He had an elder sister and brother (who later became eminent writers) and also a younger brother, Moshe.

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Childhood & Early Life:

In 1908, his family lived in Krochmalna Street, the Yiddish-speaking poor Jewish province of Warsaw that became the background for most of his novels.

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Childhood & Early Life:

Life became difficult for the family after war. In 1917, along with his younger brother Moshe and his mother, he moved to his mother’s hometown Biłgoray, whereas his father, his elder brother and sister continued to live in Warsaw.

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Childhood & Early Life:

He came back to live in Warsaw when his father became a village rabbi. In 1921, he was put in Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary, but could pursue his course only for a year.

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Childhood & Early Life:

With the help of his elder brother Joshua, who was an editor for the journal, ‘Literarische Bleter,’ he started his career as a proof-reader in 1923. Simultaneously, he worked as a translator and journalist.

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Career

He had translated the works of famous European novelists into Yiddish. His translated works of “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann and “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque are noteworthy.

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Career

From 1933 to 1935, he worked as an associate editor of “Globus,” a Yiddish literary magazine, where his first novel, ‘Satan in Goray’ was serialized.

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Career

In 1935, he immigrated to New York and worked for ‘The Forward’, a Yiddish-language newspaper aimed at Yiddish readers.

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Career

He wrote under the pen name “Bashevis" to honor his mother Bathsheba and to distinguish himself from his elder brother, Joshua Singer who was also a renowned writer.

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Career

His first book, “Satan in Goray” was published in 1935 - was written before Hitler’s entry into Poland and before the Holocaust. The novel is about a false messiah Sabattai Zevi. Under the supervision of the author, the novel was translated into English by Jacob Sloan.

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Major Works

“The Slave”, published in 1962, was in line with John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” an allegory written in realistic terms. The novel speaks about Jacob, a Jewish scholar who was sold as a slave to a Pagan peasant community, where he fell in love with Wanda, his master’s daughter.

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Major Works

“Enemies: A Love Story,” his personal novel was filmed and directed by Paul Mazursky in 1989. The novel deals with the life of Herman Broder, a Holocaust survivor who lost his faith in religion and life and about the complication in his relationships.

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Major Works

“Shosha,” the remarkable novel that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978, is about Aaron Greidinger, an ambitious young writer and son of a Hasidic rabbi..

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Major Works