With the 2004 Isaac Bashevis Singer Centennial, both loyal fans and bitter critics have found a new appetite for resurrecting old arguments. His devoted readers ate up everything he wrote. Some literary arbiters, however, wanted to spit him out. Yet nobody familiar with his work has ever called him bland or boring. To read one I.B. Singer short story is to feel almost an irresistible desire to read two more. His writing style, which may be defined as “Cabalistic Realism”, has always had a flavor of its own.
“Bashevis” (as he is known both to his supporters and detractors) practiced a kind of literary alchemy. The Nazi Holocaust inflamed his imagination with the memory of a lost world to which he eternally belonged with lingering ties of survivor's guilt. Invoking the occult powers
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Citation: Lewin, James A.. "Isaac Bashevis Singer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 January 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4088, accessed 22 November 2024.]
