Isaac Bashevis Singer
(1904–1991)
Isaac Bashevis Singer was born Icek-Hersz Zynger in a village near Warsaw, Poland. His father and both grandfathers were rabbis, and they expected Isaac to continue the tradition. However, a strong influence pulled him in another direction: His older brother, Israel Joshua, was a novelist who wrote on secular topics. Singer was torn by this conflict between the secular and the spiritual, a conflict that was to appear later in various forms in his stories. When he was nineteen, Singer made the move to Warsaw, where he worked as a journalist and occasionally published short stories. He wrote in Hebrew at first, then switched to Yiddish, a language he was to write in for the remainder of his life.
Alarmed at the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, Singer and his brother decided to immigrate to the United States. Isaac arrived in New York City in 1935. There he earned a living as a freelance writer for the Jewish Daily Forward. In 1943, he began to publish stories and novels. Singer lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for the rest of his life.
Early in his career, Singer depended upon others to translate his work. Later, as his English improved, he made the translations himself, although even then he required help. Singer said that he thought of writing in English, but not seriously. He knew that, as a writer, he had to work in his own language.
Singer became a master of the short story. Though he was slow to win recognition in the United States, he eventually won the National Book Award in 1970 for his autobiographical A Day of Pleasure, the Nobel Prize in literature in 1978, and three Newbery Honor Book awards. He once said he never expected to make a living from writing—he was surprised every time he got a check for a story.
