Chava Rosenfarb
In the Land of the Postscript: The Complete Short Stories of Chava Rosenfarb, translated by Goldie Morgentaler (White Goat Press, 2023)
Between blank and burnt pages, mother and daughter imprint meaning and memory in In the Land of the Postscript.
This collection of stories by the great Yiddish novelist, Chava Rosenfarb (1923–2011), makes available in English for the first time all of Rosenfarb's short stories.
What the Critics Say
"Rosenfarb demonstrates that lasting trauma can never be confronted and expunged without a thorough interrogation of the past. Nothing substitutes for such necessary, brutal honesty. That holds true for finely drawn fictional characters and for entire nations as well."
—Jane Eisner, The Washington Post
"Now, with In the Land of the Postscript, the reader is fortunate to have in Morgentaler a double interpreter—both translator and daughter—someone who has had singular access to, and insight into, the author, her language, and the intense emotions and experiences it conveys."
—Shelley Pomerance, In geveb
"the musical rhythms of [Rosenfarb's] prose are captured by her daughter, Goldie Morgentaler, in pitch-perfect translations and a nuanced 'Introduction.' [...] Between blank and burnt pages, mother and daughter imprint meaning and memory in In the Land of the Postscript."
—Michael Greenstein, The Miramichi Reader
"This aspect of Rosenfarb’s work – her urge to fictionalize what she could simply present as personal experience – is her distinctive contribution to Holocaust literature. The stories’ shared themes, rendered through rich character portraits, offer a detailed portrayal of the postwar scene."
—Norman Ravvin, Montreal Review of Books
About the Author
Chava Rosenfarb was one of the most important Yiddish writers of the second part of the 20th century. She was born in the industrial city of Lodz, Poland in 1923 and began writing at the age of eight with the encouragement of her father. A survivor of the Lodz Ghetto, of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, Rosenfarb settled in Canada in 1950, where most of the stories in this collection are set. Rosenfarb’s novel, The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto, was awarded the 1979 Manger Prize, Israel’s highest award for Yiddish literature. She was the recipient of numerous other literary awards, including a Canadian Jewish Book Award and the John Glassco Prize for Literary Translation. In 2006, the University of Lethbridge awarded her an honorary degree, the only such honor ever accorded a Yiddish writer in Canada. To mark the centennial of her birth, the City of Lodz declared the year 2023 to be The Year of Chava Rosenfarb. Rosenfarb died in 2011.
About the Translator
Goldie Morgentaler is Professor Emerita of English literature at the University of Lethbridge She has published numerous translations form Yiddish to English, including several stories by I. L. Peretz. She is the translator of most of Chava Rosenfarb’s work, including The Tree of Life and most of the stories in In the Land of the Postscript.