CONVERSATION WITH… Prof. Ilan Stavans By Judie Jacobson A look at Isaac Bashevis Singer on the centennial of his birth July 2, 2004 - This month the literary world celebrates the 100th birthday of the renowned Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature. Like cultural centers all across the country, The National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst will mark the occasion with several special exhibitions. In addition, a new three-volume collection of Singer's work will be made available this month from the Library of America, along with an album of photographs and tributes by various writers, including Cynthia Ozick, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Revered by many as arguably the best Yiddish writer of all time, Singer is not without his detractors. For many years, a heated debate surrounding Singer's artistic merits has ensued among literary personalities and students of Yiddish and Jewish culture. For insight into this important figure in Jewish cultural history, as well as the controversy surrounding him, the Jewish Ledger recently sat down to talk with Professor Ilan Stavans, editor of the new three-volume set, "Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories" and "Singer: An Album," published under the aegis of The Library of America. Stavans is also the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include "The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories" "On Borrowed Words" and "Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language".. He is also the host of the syndicated PBS show "La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans." Q: Do you think Singer successfully evoked the world of the shtetl and did justice to European Jewry in his work? Or do you believe, as some of his detractors claim, that his concentration on folklore, mysticism and sex did a disservice to Eastern European Jewry? A: Isaac Bashevis Singer is a story-teller of the first order. His style is crystalline, unpretentious, hypnotizing. His interest in magic and eroticism is a feature of modernist literature. He emerged out of a Yiddish literature that was, in his eyes, pedagogical and narrow-minded. His dream was to become a European author of the stature of Knut Hamsun and Thomas Mann. The religious landscape of Eastern European Jewry was his cradle, but he wrote for humankind in general. That is, he made the particular universal. Q: Did Singer write with a sense of responsibility for the Jews? A: Writers have a single responsibility: to write well. And in that one Singer succeeded marvelously. I've read some 350 stories by him and he continues to surprise me. Q: How did the controversy surrounding Singer — vis-a-vis other Jewish/Yiddish writers — arise and what was his relationship with other Jewish writers of his day? A: Envy is the engine behind the controversy. And perhaps a sense of betrayal. After all, Singer won his accolades in English, not in Yiddish. Through the help of a cadre of intelligent (if also, for the most part, non-Yiddish-speaking) translators, he reinvented himself in English. Is that a sin? Doesn't every immigrant undergo, to some extent, a similar reinvention? Is Chaim Grade better than Singer? Not in my mind, at least. What about Abraham Sutzkever? But how does one measure superiority in art? Ultimately, a successful writer is one who connects with his audience. Plus, keep in mind that the Nobel Prize, which was awarded to Singer in 1978, also creates its own dichotomy. Pearl Buck and Rabindarnath Tagore got it but not Joyce, Proust, and Borges. On which list would one prefer to be? My research into Singer's life at the Henry Ransom Humanities Center in Austin, Texas, shows the path of a vulnerable artist in search of his voice. He found it in New York City, as a contributor to "The Jewish Daily Forward," after his brother Israel Joshua, responsible for masterpieces such as "The Brothers Ashkenazi" and "The Family Carnovsky," died in 1944. The event triggered a sense of responsibility in Singer: the spotlight was his and his obligation was to seize it. How did Singer relate to other Jewish writers? Not well, I'm afraid: he thought Kafka's obsession with allegory was a mistake; Saul Bellow was too cerebral for him. Worse of all, he never promoted younger talents who sought him. So is he guilty of egocentrism? No doubt he is. But Singer isn't the first artist to suffer this malaise. In the end, though, his fiction is an astonishing testament of the turbulence that lives in our heart and a witness to the transformation of the Jewish people from provincialism to full-fledged modernity. That, precisely, is why Singer speaks loudly to American Jews: he is the chronicler of our resurrection. Q: Do you detect the influence of Singer in any of the contemporary crop of young Jewish writers? A: Everywhere… from Nathan Englander's "For the Release of Unbearable Urges" to Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated." But his impact is also palpable among non-Jews, especially in the field of children's literature. Remember: Susan Sontag, Ted Hughes, and Joyce Carol Oates sang his praise. Q: Tell us about the newly published three-volume edition of Singer's works, which you edited? What was the reason for this compilation? Is it hoped that Singer's work will be revived or reintroduced n or perhaps introduced to a new generation? A: The 3-volume set of "Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories" is a landmark: along with Vladimir Nabokov, he is the sole non-English-language novelist to be canonized by The Library of America. The purpose of the edition — and of the photographic album accompanying it — is to offer a comprehensive view of Singer as a master of short fiction, to allow readers to appreciate the arc of his career, from his early start in the 1940s to his apex as a frequent contributor to "The New Yorker." To be honest, Singer needs little reintroduction: his books are perennial sellers, not only in the United States but in England, France, Germany, Poland, Israel, Japan and Latin America. A classic is a work whose value is not lessened by time. Singer has been re-appropriated by one generation after another. His novel "The Slave" is superb and his stories "Gimpel the Fool," "The Cafeteria" and "The Spinoza of Market Street" have been interpreted in a myriad of ways. This year marks his centennial and the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish community in America. In this context, the purpose of the 3-volume set is not only to appreciate his overall contribution but to ask larger questions that affect us all: Is an ethnic writer required to stay put in his milieu? Is his embrace by society at large a sellout? To what extent has Yiddish become a fountain of nostalgia? Does Singer benefit from that nostalgia? And what should we learn from his generation, often consumed by anxiety and regret? Q: What words of "advice" do you have for young readers who are about to be introduced to Singer's work for the first time? A: Simply let yourself be hypnotized by the cadence of his tales.