Isaac Bashevis Singer
An item at American Writers Museum
As a young man in Radzymin, Poland, Isaac Bashevis Singer initially pursued rabbinical studies, but the pull of literature was too strong. He worked as a journalist while honing his storytelling skills. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1935, Singer contributed to the Jewish Daily Forward, a Yiddish-language newspaper which published much of his fiction.
The events of World War Il heightened the poignancy of Singer's work. He wrote in Yiddish and celebrated Polish-Jewish resourcefulness and imagination -a language and culture wiped out by the Holocaust. In 1978, he won the Nobel Prize for "his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life."
AMERICAN VOICES
An exhibit at American Writers Museum
American writing is distinctive, diverse, and comes in many forms from across the nation. The 100 authors featured here represent the evolution of American writing. Learn more about each writer on the timeline by turning the panels below their portraits. Explore centuries of writing by pulling, turning, and touching the interactive elements on the counter.
This is not meant to be a list of the greatest or most influential writers. Instead, we present authors and works as part of the American story as it grows and changes. Taken together, this rich literary heritage reflects America in all of its complexity: its energy, hope, conflict, disillusionment, and creativity.