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Isaac
Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side
Photographs by Bruce Davidson
With introductions by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Ilan Stavans, Jill
Meredith and Gabriele Werffeli
Terrace Books
Singer's own New York
In 1973, the Yiddish writer and Nobel laureate
Isaac Bashevis Singer collaborated with New York documentary
photographer Bruce Davidson to make a surreal film, Isaac
Bashevis Singer's Nightmare and Mrs. Pupko's Beard. This
film was at once a documentary about Singer's New York and a
dramatization of one of his short stories. The film grew out
of the pair's friendship as residents of the same building on
the Upper West Side of Manhattan and their common interest in
New York City street life. During and after production, Davidson
made numerous portraits of Singer and also returned to the Lower
East Side for a documentary series of photographs.
A selection of these stunning images made between 1957 and 1990
is available here for the first time. The book also includes
portraits of Singer, stills from the film, the black and white
portfolio known as The Garden Cafeteria, and selections
from Davidson's Lower East Side series. The Garden Cafeteria was a collaboration depicting denizens of the East Broadway restaurant
frequented by Singer during his trips to The Jewish Daily
Forward. The portfolio has never before been published nor
exhibited in its entirety. Included is an introduction by Singer
himself on Davidson's images; an in-depth interview with Davidson
about his art, aesthetic and political views, and his Jewishness;
and a reflective, contextual essay by Ilan Stavans on this collaboration
between the writer and the photographer. Through Davidson's lens
we see Singer's literary world of Holocaust survivors and émigrés
from Eastern Europe—a displaced culture in its twilight.
- Published in conjunction with an exhibition
by the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College
- 2004 is the centennial year of Singer's
birth
Bruce Davidson worked
as a freelance photographer for Life magazine and joined
Magnum Photos in 1958. As a documentary photographer, he produced
two photo essays, "Brooklyn Gang" and the "Freedom
Rides." He photographed the Civil Rights Movement, including
a rally in Harlem, Ku Klux Klan cross burnings, and the marches
in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. In 1966 he won the first photography
grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to document East
100th Street in Harlem; this work was exhibited at the Museum
of Modern Art. His most recent project is Subway, a book
and
exhibition of New York City culture.
Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American
and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He is the author of On
Borrowed Words, Spanglish, and The Schocken Book of Modern
Sephardic Literature. His work has been translated into a
dozen languages. Stavans is also editor of the three-volume Isaac
Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories published by the Library
of America. He is the focus of another book by the UW Press, Ilan Stavans: Eight Conversations,
by Neal Sokol.
Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.) |
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October 2004
120 pp. 7 x 10
50 b/w, 8 color photos
"An understated
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Friedman, author of Setting the Lawn on Fire
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