Rabbi is the term in Judaism for a religious teacher. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ‘great’ in many senses, including "revered." The word comes from the Semitic root R-B-B, and is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning "lord" Rabbi . His elder siblings--brother
Israel Joshua SingerIsrael Joshua Singer was a Yiddish novelist. He was born Yisroel Yehoyshue Zinger the son of Pinchas Mendl Zinger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Basheva Zylberman...
(1893-1944) and sister Esther Kreitman (1891–1954)--were also writers. Esther was the first in the family to write stories.
The family moved to the court of the Rabbi of Radzymin in 1907, where his father became head of the Yeshiva. After the Yeshiva building burned down in 1908, the family moved to Krochmalna Street in the
YiddishYiddish is a non-territorial High German language of Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world...
-speaking poor Jewish quarter of Warsaw, where Singer grew up. There his father acted as a rabbi — i.e., judge, arbitrator, religious authority and spiritual leader.
World War I
In 1917, because of the hardships of World War I, the family had to split up. Singer moved with his mother and younger brother Moshe to his mother's hometown of Biłgoraj, a traditional Jewish town or
shtetlA shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in pre-Holocaust Central and Eastern Europe...
, where his mother's brothers had followed his grandfather as rabbis. When his father became a village rabbi again in 1921, Singer went back to
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
, where he entered the Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary. However, he soon found out that neither the school nor the profession suited him. He returned to Biłgoraj, where he tried to support himself by giving
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
lessons, but soon gave up and joined his parents, considering himself a failure. In 1923 his older brother Israel Joshua arranged for him to move to Warsaw to work as a proofreader for the
Literarische Bleter, of which he was an editor.
United States
In 1935, four years before the
GermanNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
invasionThe Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II...
and the Holocaust, Singer emigrated from
PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
due to the growing Nazi threat in neighboring Germany. The move separated the author from his common law first wife Runia Pontsch and son Israel Zamir {b.1929}, who instead went to Moscow and then
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
(they would meet in 1955). Singer settled in
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, where he took up work as a journalist and columnist for
The ForwardThe Forward is a Jewish-American weekly newspaper published in New York City.As of 2008, the Forward is published as a weekly news magazine in separate Yiddish and English editions. Each is effectively an independent publication with its own contents. Jane Eisner became Editor in June, 2008. The...
, a Yiddish-language newspaper. After a promising start, he became despondent and felt for some years "Lost in America" (title of a Singer novel, in Yiddish from 1974 onward, in English 1981). In 1938, he met Alma Wassermann (born Haimann) {b.1907-d.1996}, a German-Jewish refugee from
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
whom he married in 1940. Re-married, he returned to prolific writing and to contributing to the
Forward, using, besides "Bashevis," the pen names "Varshavsky" and "D. Segal."
Singer died on July 24, 1991 in
Surfside, FloridaSurfside is a town in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 4,909 at the 2000 census. As of 2005, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 4,710.-Geography:...
, after suffering a series of
strokeA stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by thrombosis or embolism or due to a hemorrhage...
s. He was buried in Cedar Park Cemetery, Emerson. A street in
Surfside, FloridaSurfside is a town in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 4,909 at the 2000 census. As of 2005, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 4,710.-Geography:...
is named Isaac Bashevis Singer Boulevard in his honor. Furthermore, the full academic scholarship for undergraduate students at the
University of MiamiThe University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 in the city of Coral Gables, Florida within Miami-Dade County...
is named in his honor.
Writing
Singer's first published story won the literary competition of the "literarishe bletter" and garnered him a reputation as a promising talent. A reflection of his formative years in "the kitchen of literature" can be found in many of his later works. I. B. Singer published his first novel
Satan in Goray in installments in the literary magazine
Globus, which he cofounded with his life-long friend, the Yiddish poet
Aaron ZeitlinAaron Zeitlin , the son of the famous Jewish writer Hillel Zeitlin, authored several books on Yiddish literature, Poetry and Parapsychology.-Biography:Zeitlin spent his formative years in Homel and Vilna...
in 1935. It tells the story of events in 1648 in the village of Goraj (close to Biłgoraj), where the Jews of Poland lost a third of their population in a cruel uprising by Cossacks, and details the effects of the seventeenth-century faraway false messiah Shabbatai Zvi on the local population. Its last chapter imitates the style of medieval Yiddish chronicle. With a stark depiction of innocence crushed by circumstance, the novel appears to foreshadow coming danger. In his later work
The Slave (1962), Singer returns to the aftermath of 1648, in a love story between a Jewish man and a
GentileThe term Gentile refers to non-Israelite tribes or nations in English translations of the Bible, most notably the King James Version....
woman, where he depicts the traumatized and desperate survivors of the historic catastrophe with even deeper understanding.
The Family Moskat
Singer became an actual literary contributor to the
Forward only following his older brother's death in 1945, when he published "The Family Moskat" in his honor. But his own style showed in the daring turns of his action and characters - with (and this in the Jewish family-newspaper in 1945) double adultery in the holiest of nights of Judaism, the evening of
Yom KippurYom Kippur , also known as the Day of Forgiveness, is the holiest day of the year for religious Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services...
. He was almost forced to stop writing the novel by his legendary editor-in-chief,
Abraham CahanAbraham Cahan was a Lithuanian-born American socialist newspaper editor, novelist, and politician.-Early years:Abraham Cahan was born July 7, 1860 in Podberezhye, Lithuania, into a Orthodox Jewish family. His grandfather was a rabbi in Vidz, Vitebsk, his father a teacher of Hebrew and the Talmud...
, but was saved by readers who wanted the story to go on. After this, his stories - which he had published in Yiddish literary newspapers before - were printed in the
Forward as well. Throughout the 1940s, Singer's reputation grew. After World War II and the near destruction of the Yiddish-speaking peoples, Yiddish seemed to be a dead language. Though Singer had moved to the United States, he believed in the power of his native language and maintained that there was still a large audience that longed to read in Yiddish. In an interview in
Encounter (Feb. 1979), he claimed that although the
Jews of PolandThe history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in Europe and served as the center for Jewish culture, ranging from a long period of religious tolerance and prosperity among the country's Jewish population, to its...
had died, "something - call it spirit or whatever - is still somewhere in the universe. This is a mystical kind of feeling, but I feel there is truth in it."
Some of his colleagues and readers were shocked by this all-encompassing view of human nature. He wrote about female homosexuality ("Zeitl and Rickl" in "The Seance"), transvestitism ("Yentl the Yeshiva Boy" in "Short Friday"), and of rabbis corrupted by demons ("Zeidlus the Pope" in "Short Friday"). In those novels and stories which seem to recount his own life, he portrays himself unflatteringly (with some degree of accuracy) as an artist who is self-centered yet has a keen eye for the sufferings and tribulations of others.
Literary Influences
Singer had many literary influences; besides the religious texts he studied there where the folktales he grew up with and worldly Yiddish detective-stories about "Max Spitzkopf" and his assistant "Fuchs"; there was Dostoyevsky, whose
Crime and PunishmentCrime and Punishment is a novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky that was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments in 1866. It was later published in a single volume...
he read when he was fourteen; and he writes about the importance of the Yiddish translations donated in book-crates from America, which he studied as a teenager in Bilgoraj: "I read everything: Stories, novels, plays, essays… I read Rejsen,
StrindbergStrindberg may refer to:People* August Strindberg , Swedish dramatist and painter* Nils Strindberg , Swedish photographer* Anita Strindberg , Swedish actor* Henrik Strindberg , Swedish composerOther...
, Don Kaplanowitsch, Turgenev,
TolstoyTolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from one Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
, Maupassant and
ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
." He studied many philosophers, among them
Baruch SpinozaBaruch or Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
.,
Arthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his atheistic pessimism and philosophical clarity...
, and
Otto WeiningerOtto Weininger was an Austrian philosopher. In 1903, he published the book Geschlecht und Charakter which gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23...
. Among his Yiddish contemporaries Singer himself considered his older brother to be his greatest artistic example; he was a life-long friend and admirer of the author and poet
Aaron ZeitlinAaron Zeitlin , the son of the famous Jewish writer Hillel Zeitlin, authored several books on Yiddish literature, Poetry and Parapsychology.-Biography:Zeitlin spent his formative years in Homel and Vilna...
. Of his non-Yiddish-contemporaries he was strongly influenced by the writings of
Knut HamsunKnut Hamsun was a Norwegian author. He was considered by Isaac Bashevis Singer to be the "father of modern literature", and by King Haakon to be Norway's soul. In 1920, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil"...
, many of whose works he later translated, while he had more critical attitude towards
Thomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
, whose approach to writing he considered opposed to his own. Contrary to Hamsun's approach, Singer shaped his world not only with the egos of his characters, but also using the moral commitments of the Jewish tradition that he grew up with and that his father embodies in the stories about his youth. This led to the dichotomy between the life his heroes lead and the life they feel they should lead - which gives his art a modernity his predecessors do not evince. His themes of witchcraft, mystery and legend draw on traditional sources, but they are contrasted with a modern and ironic consciousness. They are also concerned with the bizarre and the grotesque.
Another important strand of his art is intra-familial strife - which he experienced firsthand when taking refuge with his mother and younger brother at his uncles home in Biłgoraj. This is the central theme in Singer's big family chronicles - like
The Family Moskat (1950),
The Manor (1967), and
The Estate (1969). Some are reminded by them of
Thomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
's novel
Buddenbrooks; Singer had translated Mann's
Der Zauberberg (
The Magic MountainThe Magic Mountain is a novel by Thomas Mann, first published in November 1924. It is widely considered to be one of the most influential works of 20th century German literature....
) into Yiddish as a young writer.
Language
Singer always wrote and published in Yiddish (almost all of it in newspapers) and then edited his novels and stories for their American versions, which became the basis for all other translations (he talked of his "second original"). This has led to an ongoing controversy whereby the "real Singer" can be found either in the Yiddish original, with its finely tuned language and sometimes rambling construction, or in the tightly edited American copy, where the language is usually simpler and more direct. Many stories and novels of I. B. Singer have not yet undergone translation.
In the short story form, in which many critics feel he made his most lasting contributions, his greatest influences were
ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
and Maupassant. From Maupassant, Singer developed a finely grained sense of drama. Like the French master, Singer's stories can pack enormous visceral excitement in the space of a few pages. From Chekhov, Singer developed his ability to draw characters of enormous complexity and dignity in the briefest of spaces. In the forward to his personally selected volume of his finest short stories he describes the two aforementioned writers as the greatest masters of the short story form.
Summary
Singer published at least 18 novels, 14 children's books, a number of memoirs, essays and articles, but is best known as a writer of short stories, which have appeared in over a dozen collections. The first collection of Singer's short stories in English,
Gimpel the Fool"Gimpel the Fool" is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated into English by Saul Bellow in 1953. It tells the story of Gimpel, a simple bread maker who is the butt of many of his town's jokes. It also gives its name to the collection first published in 1956....
, was published in 1957. The title story was translated by
Saul BellowSaul Bellow was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
and published in May 1953 in
Partisan ReviewPartisan Review was an American political and literary quarterly published from 1934 to 2003, though it suspended publication between October 1936 and December 1937.-Overview:It was founded by William Phillips, Philip Rahv, and Sender Garlin...
. Selections from Singer's "Varshavsky-stories" in the
Daily Forward were later published in anthologies as
My Father's Court (1966). Later collections include
A Crown of Feathers (1973), with notable masterpieces in between, such as
The Spinoza of Market Street (1961) and
A Friend of Kafka (1970). His stories and novels reflect the world of the East European Jewry he grew up in - in its complexity and grandeur, its material poverty and spiritual splendor. And, after his many years in America, his stories also concerned themselves with the world of the immigrants and how their American dream proves elusive both when they obtain it, e.g. Salomon Margolin, the successful doctor of "A Wedding in Brownsville" (in
Short Friday) who finds out his true love was killed by the Nazis, and when it escapes them as it does the "Cabalist of East Broadway" (in
A Crown of Feathers), who prefers the misery of the Lower East Side to an honored and secure life as a married man.
Although dozens of his stories are available in anthologies, one of the interesting things about his literary career is that, as he became better known (but before the Nobel Prize), translations of his stories were frequently published in popular magazines such as "Playboy" and "Esquire." These magazines were quite anxious to raise their literary reputation by publishing Singer, and he in turn found them to be appropriate outlets for his work.
Throughout the 1960s, Singer continued to write on questions of personal morality, and was the target of scathing criticism from many quarters during this time, some of it for not being "moral" enough, some for writing stories that no one wanted to hear. To his critics he replied, "Literature must spring from the past, from the love of the uniform force that wrote it, and not from the uncertainty of the future."
Singer was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1978.
One of his most famous novels (due to a popular movie remake) was
Enemies, a Love Story in which a Holocaust survivor deals with his own desires, complex family relationships, and a loss of faith. Singer's feminist story "
YentlYentl is a play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer.Based on Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," it centers on a young girl who defies tradition by discussing and debating Jewish law and theology with her rabbi father...
" has had a wide impact on culture since its conversion into
popular movieYentl is a 1983 American film from United Artists, and directed, co-written, co-produced and starring Barbra Streisand based on a play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer, itself based on Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy"...
starring
Barbra Streisand Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, film and theatre actress. She has also achieved note as a composer, liberal political activist, film producer, and film director. She has won two Academy Awards, ten Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, and a Peabody all by the age of...
. Perhaps the most fascinating Singer-inspired film is 1974's
Mr. Singer's Nightmare or Mrs. Pupkos Beard by
Bruce DavidsonBruce Davidson is an American photographer. He has been a member of Magnum since 1958. His photographs, notably those taken in Harlem, have been widely exhibited and published in a number of books.-Youth:...
, a renowned photographer who became Singer's neighbor. This unique film is a half-hour mixture of documentary and fantasy for which Singer not only wrote the script but played the leading role.
Judaism
Singer's relationship to Judaism, which was complex and unconventional, evades description because he did not write very much directly about it. On the other hand, he often employs first-person narrators in his fiction that are clearly meant to represent him personally.
He regarded himself as a skeptic and a loner, though he felt a connection to his orthodox roots. Ultimately, he developed a view of religion and philosophy, which he called "private mysticism: Since God was completely unknown and eternally silent, He could be endowed with whatever traits one elected to hang upon Him."
Singer was brought up in an Orthodox household, where he learned all the Jewish prayers, studied Hebrew, and learned Torah and Talmud. But as he recounts in the autobiographical ' 'In My Father's Court ' ', he broke away from his parents in his early twenties and began spending time with non-religious Bohemian artists in Warsaw (influenced by his older brother, who had done the same). Although he clearly believed in a monotheistic God (as in traditional Judaism), he stopped attending Jewish religious services of any kind, even on the High Holy Days. His vegetarianism, which he adopted in 1962 when he had the means to do so, and which became a very important part of his later life, can also be seen as a way of avoiding the question of Kosher food. He struggled throughout his life with the realization that a kind and compassionate God would never inflict the massive suffering he saw around him, especially the Holocaust deaths of the Polish Jews he grew up with. In one interview with the photographer Richard Kaplan, he said, "I am angry at God because of what happened to my brother [his older brother died, suddenly, in February 1944, in New York, of a thrombosis, his younger brother perished in Soviet Russia ca. 1945, after being deported with his mother and wife to Southern
KazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country situated in Eurasia that is ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also the world's largest landlocked country. Its territory of 2,727,300 km² is greater than Western Europe...
." In one story, however, his narrator tells a woman, "If you believe in God, then he exists."
Despite all these complexities in his religious outlook, Singer lived in the midst of the Jewish community throughout his life. He did not seem to be comfortable unless he was surrounded by Jews; particularly Jews born in Europe. Although he spoke
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
, Hebrew, and
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
quite fluently, he always considered Yiddish his natural tongue, he always wrote in Yiddish and he was the last famous American author writing in this language. After he had achieved success as a writer in New York, Singer and his wife began spending time during the winters with the Jewish community in Miami. Eventually, as senior citizens, they moved to Miami and identified closely with the European Jewish community: a street was named after him long before he died. I.B. Singer was buried in a traditional Jewish ceremony in a Jewish cemetery.
Especially in his short fiction, he often writes about Jews of various kinds who are having religious struggles; sometimes these struggles become quite violent, resulting in death or mental illness. In one story he meets a young woman in New York whom he knew from an Orthodox family in Poland. She has become a kind of hippy, sings American folk music with a guitar, and rejects Judaism, although the narrator comments that in many ways she seems typically Jewish. The narrator says that he often meets Jews who think they are anything but Jewish, and yet still are.
In the end, Singer remains an unquestionably Jewish writer, yet his precise views about Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish God are open to much interpretation. Whatever they are, they lie at the center of his literary art.
Vegetarianism
Singer was a prominent vegetarian for the last 35 years of his life and often included vegetarian themes in his works. In his short story,
The Slaughterer, he described the anguish of an appointed slaughterer trying to reconcile his compassion for animals with his job of killing them. He felt that the ingestion of meat was a denial of all ideals and all religions: "How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood?" When asked if he had become a vegetarian for health reasons, he replied: "I did it for the health of the chickens."
In
The Letter Writer, he wrote "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka"
http://www.peta.org/Living/at-spring2002/treblinka/.
In the preface to Steven Rosen's "Food for Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions" (1986), Singer wrote, "When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. It is inconsistent. I can never accept inconsistency or injustice. Even if it comes from God. If there would come a voice from God saying, "I'm against vegetarianism!" I would say, "Well, I am for it!" This is how strongly I feel in this regard."
Short stories
- "The Mistake" The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications...
60/51 (4 February 1985) : 36-40. Translated from the Yiddish by Rina Borrow and Lester GoranLester Goran is an American writer best known for his works about growing up poor in his hometown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the neighborhood of Oakland.-Life:...
.
Posthumous editions
- Stavans, Ilan, ed. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stories Vol. 1 (Library of America
The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published nearly 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to...
, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108261-7
- Stavans, Ilan, ed. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stories Vol. 2 (Library of America
The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published nearly 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to...
, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108262-4
- Stavans, Ilan, ed. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stories Vol. 3 (Library of America
The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published nearly 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to...
, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108263-1
- Burgin, Richard, and Isaac Bashevis Singer Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer (1985) ISBN 0-385-17999-5
- Rencontre au Sommet
Rencontre au Sommet is an 86-page book containing the complete transcripts of conversations between Anthony Burgess and Isaac Bashevis Singer when they met for a Swedish television documentary in 1985....
(86-page transcript in book form of conversations between Singer and Anthony BurgessJohn Burgess Wilson was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic....
) (1998)
External links
See also