Blacks and Jews in Literary Conversation explores the works of a range of black and Jewish writers, critics, and academics from the 1950s to the 1980s. By recording conversations both direct, such as essays and letters, and indirect, such as the fiction of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Alice Walker, Cynthia Ozick, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin, this book shows how dialogue can engender misperceptions and misunderstandings, and how blacks and Jews in America have both sought and resisted assimilation. By analyzing the history of this discourse, the author explores the ways in which ethnic fiction works in interethnic America, the effects of identity politics, and the tensions and bonds created as African and Jewish Americans continue to construct their ethnic and religious identities in the United States.
| ISBN: | 9780521635752 |
| Publication date: | 28th September 1998 |
| Author: | Emily Miller Hebrew University of Jerusalem Budick |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 266 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Social groups: religious groups and communities Ethnic studies |