Description:
Short stories from the Hasidic tradition of a wandering storyteller, set amidst the mountain communities of the Carpathian region, which now span Romania and Ukraine
Brief description: The writer Ludovic (Joseph-Leib, Arye) Bruckstein was born on the 27th of July 1920, in Munkacs, then in Czechoslovakia, now in Ukraine. He grew up in Sighet, a small town in the district of Maramures, in the Northern region of Transylvania, a town well known for its flourishing pre-war Jewish community and Hassidic tradition. In Sighet, before the Second World War, LudovicBruckstein's father, Mordechai, owned a small factory producing walking canes that were exported to various European countries. The family business also exported medicinal plants that grow in Maramures, and were collected by the peasants in villages around Sighet.
Review Quotes:
Shining Examples of Yiddish Storytelling
"His evocations of Jewish life in the Carpathians. . . are comparable to those of I L Peretz and Sholem Aleichem in Poland and Russia. Like them, Bruckstein is a secular Maggid, a product of the Chasidic storytelling tradition, his cast of blacksmiths, porters, cabinet- makers, businessmen and schnorrers, remnants of a world on the brink of annihilation." Mark Glanville, The Jewish Chronicle
"Whereas contemporary short stories often rely on ephemeral insight, the lessons here feel solid, timeworn and tested. . . The translation from Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth captures brilliantly the sage wisdom of the rabbis with their humour and mischief...Recommended with enthusiasm, this is a collection I plan to return to often."
Rónán Hession, The Irish Times