Blends elements of psychoanalysis and Asian religions to probe an Indian aristocrat's efforts to renounce sensual and material pleasures and discover spiritual truths.

In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hermann Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river.

Product Description: The most popular work from provocative Austrian Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher is a searing portrait of a woman bound between a repressive society and her darkest desires. Erika Kohut is a piano teacher at the prestigious and formal Vienna Conservatory, who still lives with her domineering and possessive mother...read more

Short novels by Aleichem, Aksenfeld, and Moykher-Sforim, stories by Peretz, Rabbi Nahkman, and Der Nister, religious writings, and Hassidic yarns depict Jewish life in the shtetl from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Reprint.

An anthology of Yiddish folktales, previously unavailable in English and translated by a finalist for a 2001 National Jewish Book Award, encompasses a wide range of traditional folk literature from its origins to the modern era.

A collection of fictional writings about the folklore character of the Golem, a creature made of clay and brought to life by Rabbi Leyb of Prague in the sixteenth century, includes a translation of H. Leivick's blank verse play, Yudl Rosenberg's pamphlet of Golem tales, and additional stories by such writers as S. Bastomski, Dovid Frishman, and Y. L. Peretz.

From the first moment Severin sees Wanda, draped in furs, he is captivated by her beauty, and her cruelty. Soon desire becomes obsession as they enter into a world of pleasure and pain to which it seems there are no boundaries. But as Wanda's fantasies become brutal and she takes another lover, their games begin to get dangerously out of control.

A major literary event, the publication of this masterly translation makes one of the towering works of twentieth-century German literature available to English-speaking readers for the first time. The three-volume novel The Aesthetics of Resistance is the crowning achievement of Peter Weiss, the internationally renowned dramatist best known for his play Marat/Sade. The first volume, presented here, was initially published in Germany in 1975; the third and final volume appeared in 1981, just six months before Weiss’s death.Spanning the period from the late 1930s to World War II, this historical novel dramatizes anti-fascist resistance and the rise and fall of proletarian political parties in Europe. Living in Berlin in 1937, the unnamed narrator and his peers—sixteen- and seventeen-year-old working-class students—seek ways to express their hatred for the Nazi regime. They meet in museums and galleries, and in their discussions they explore the affinity between political resistance and art, the connection at the heart of Weiss’s novel. Weiss suggests that meaning lies in embracing resistance, no matter how intense the oppression, and that we must look to art for new models of political action and social understanding. The novel includes extended meditations on paintings, sculpture, and literature. Moving from the Berlin underground to the front lines of the Spanish Civil War and on to other parts of Europe, the story teems with characters, almost all of whom are based on historical figures. The Aesthetics of Resistance is one of the truly great works of postwar German literature and an essential resource for understanding twentieth-century German history.

A newly translated treasury of Yiddish literature features stories that best represent Jewish traditions, culture, and history, in a volume that includes works from the earliest literary periods through the present-day writings of I.B. Singer. Reprint.

A collection of mystical and imaginative writings spawned from Jewish folklore and tradition range in style from bizarre to lyrical, covering four centuries of literature. Read by Theodore Bikel, John Rubenstein, and others.

The Jewish World War I journalist and politician traces his four-year endeavor to raise funds, lobby, and bring relief supplies to Jewish towns ravaged by the warring Russian, German, and Austrian armies. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

After devoting their energy and income for ten years to replacing a borrowed diamond necklace that they lost, a woman and her husband learn the irony of their efforts in the title story in an anthology that also includes new translations of 'The Horia' and 'Mademoiselle Fifi.'

The first new translation of Proust's stories in half a century includes six stories that have been translated into English for the first time. Original.

A newly translated treasury of Yiddish literature features stories that best represent Jewish traditions, culture, and history, in a volume that includes works from the earliest literary periods through the present-day writings of I.B. Singer. 15,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

A single-volume collection of Proust's work includes the complete text of his short story collection Pleasures and Days as well as many other works. (view table of contents)

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Product Description: The Dybbuk is arguably the most famous play in the Yiddish repertoire and plays an intrinsic part in the cultural system that created the Yiddish imagination. Along with this new translation, this text offers a variety of literary works spanning the 17th to the 20th centuries. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

This is a subtle & touching study of family life at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Roth manages to write in the form of the traditional family saga but at the same time giving it an individual manner & the wider panorama of a failing dynasty