Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links

The words "Jewish Lit Links" are printed over what appears to be a portion of a Torah scroll.
Every Friday, the My Machberet blog presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • An English translation of David Shrayer-Petrov’s “refusenik novel” Doctor Levitin receives Monica Osborne’s attention over on Los Angeles Review of Books.
  • I’ve fallen hopelessly behind with it, but this week brought the Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour, featuring interviews with winning authors and illustrators on a variety of Jewish and kidlit blogs. Luckily, the tour stops remain archived.
  • This week also brought the cover reveal for a book I’m anticipating with great eagerness: It’s a Whole Spiel (“the first ever anthology of Jewish YA fiction”). Co-edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman, the book will include a foreword by Mayim Bialik (news that broke with the cover reveal).
  • Something else to look forward to: Anna Solomon’s next novel, which has just been acquired for publication in 2020. Titled The Book of V., the book is being billed as “a kaleidoscopic feminist novel about three women—the biblical Esther in ancient Persia, a senator’s wife in 1970s Washington, D.C., and a Brooklyn mother of two in 2016—whose stories overlap and ultimately converge in powerful and unexpected ways.”
  • And it has been exciting week for Jewish Storyteller Press, with the publication of Tina Lunson’s translation of Jacob Dinezon’s 1877 Yiddish best-seller The Dark Young Man—and a mini-wave of excellent press attention (from the Forverts, Words Without Borders, New York Journal of Books, and Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb).