Random Harvest: The Novellas of Bialik

by David Patterson, Ezra Spicehandler

Hayyim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) is celebrated as one of the leading figures in modern Jewish literature. Although most famous for his Hebrew poems, Bialik was also a master of Hebrew prose. Often expressing a realism and social awareness associated with the Russia of his youth, Bialik’s stories showcase his extraordinary gift for lyricism, his deft use of symbolism, and his sense of humor, captured in engaging vignettes of life in the Ukrainian countryside.David Patterson and Ezra Spicehandler have combined their formidable literary talents to produce a new translation of six of Bialik’s novellas. Random Harvest: The Novellas of Bialik is written in contemporary English and takes into account the large and important corpus of Bialik criticism that has been published over the years. This stunning new translation not only evokes the subtleties of the original Hebrew, it also reveals nuances which have eluded previous translators of Bialik’s prose.The novellas in this collection—“Random Harvest,” “Behind the Fence,” “The Shamed Trumpet,” “Big Harry,” “The Short Friday,” and “The Legend of the Three and Four”—are each accompanied by a brief introduction. In addition, the book contains a complete glossary, making Random Harvest the most accessible collection of Bialik’s stories available.

310 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

About the author

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David Patterson holds the Hillel Feinberg Chair in Holocaust Studies in the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas. A member of the World Union of Jewish Studies and the Association for Jewish Studies, he has delivered lectures at numerous universities and community organizations throughout the world. He is a participant in the Weinstein Symposium on the Holocaust, a member of the Facing History and Ourselves International Board of Advisors, and a member of the Scholars' Platform for the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre, Cambridge, England. He also serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Stephen S. Weinstein Series in Post-Holocaust Studies, published by the University of Washington Press.

He has also translated literary works by Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy.