Deborah

Esther Kreitman

Virago Press, London, 1983. First Virago edition. Virago Modern Classics series.

CONDITION: Good. Text block clean and tight with no marks or annotations apart from a previous owner's name and two pencilled prices on the first page. Covers intact and presentable. Note: a clear adhesive protective cover has been applied over the original covers — this is in place and not peeling, but buyers should be aware it is present. Moderate tanning to page edges throughout.

Esther Kreitman (1891–1954) was the elder sister of Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer and Israel Joshua Singer — and the first of the family to write. Originally published in Yiddish in Warsaw in 1936 as Der Shedam Tanz, and translated into English by her son Maurice Carr in 1946, Deborah was out of print for decades before Virago rescued it in 1983. This edition was the book's first wide circulation in English.

An autobiographical novel set in early twentieth-century Polish Jewish life, following a rabbi's daughter denied education and forced into an arranged marriage. Isaac Bashevis Singer credited his sister and her story as the direct inspiration for Yentl.

Introduction by Clive Sinclair.

ISBN: 0-86068-325-7

378 pages

A scarce Virago VMC title with genuine literary-historical significance.