Telling the little secrets: American Jewish writing since the 1980s

Abstract

Janet Burstein argues that American Jewish writers since 1980s have created a significant literature by wrestling with troubled legacy of trauma, loss, and exile. Their ranks include Cynthia Ozick, Todd Gitlin, Art Spiegelman, Pearl Abraham, Aryeh Lev Stollman, Jonathan Rosen, and Gerda Lerner. Whether confronting massive losses of Holocaust, sense of home in exile, or continuing power of Jewish memory, these Jewish writers search for understanding within the little secrets of their dark, complicated, and richly furnished past.