Shosha

It is Warsaw in the 1930s, the years of Hitler’s rise to power. Aaron Greidinger, familiarly known as Tsutsik, and an aspiring young writer, struggles to be true to his art when he is faced with a chance of riches and a passport to America. Tsutsik finds himself emotionally involved with four women-Betty, who admires his talent; Celia, an older married woman he meets through Dr. Feitelzohn, a senior member of the Writers’ Club; Tekla, a girl from the country who works as a maid in his new flat; and Dora the Marxist, an old flame with whom he is reconciled on the eve of her Soviet departure. “In all the novels I have read,” Tsutsik tells himself, “the hero desires only one woman, but here I was lusting after the whole female gender.” One spring day, walking with Betty through his old Krochmalna Street neighborhood, Tsutsik rediscovers his past-in the person of his childhood playmate, Shosha, still an innocent young woman. Tsutsik’s and Shosha’s subsequent fate and that of all of his friends, revealed in an epilogue in Israel, rounds off this wonderful saga of human unpredictability, self-deception, and humor in the midst of tragedy.One of Singer’s most personal works, Shosha is an unforgettable novel about the conflicted desires, lost lives and the redemption of one man. “Isaac Bashevis Singer…celebrates the dignity, mystery, and unexpected joy of living with more art and fervor than any other writer alive,” Peter R. Prescott stated in Newsweek when the novel was first published. “He is concerned with all the major themes, with good and evil, belief and doubt, action and contemplation, the nature of illusion and the joys of the flesh.” With the publication of Shosha, the novelist confirmed his position as one of the major figures in Twentieth Century American Letters.