Books by Efraim Sicher

An innovative study of the gendering of ethnic difference in Western society, Sicher's multidisciplinary, comparative analysis shows how racialized images have persisted and helped to form prejudiced views of the Other.

Isaak Babel' (1894-1940) is arguably one of the greatest modern short story writers of the early twentieth century. Yet his life and work are shrouded in the mystery of who Babel' was-an Odessa Jew who wrote in Russian, who came from one of the most vibrant centers of east European Jewish culture, and who all his life loved Yiddish and the stories of Sholom Aleichem This is the first book in English to study the intertextuality of Babel''s work. It looks at Babel''s cultural identity as a case study in the contradictions and tensions of literary influence, personal loyalties, and ideological constraint. The complex and often ambivalent relations between the two cultures inevitably raise controversial issues that touch on the reception of Babel' and other Jewish intellectuals in Russian literature, as well as the "e;Jewishness"e; of their work.

In the Western literary tradition, the ""jew"" has long been a figure of ethnic exclusion and social isolation - the wanderer, the scapegoat, the alien. But it is no longer clear where a perennial outsider belongs. This provocative study of contemporary British writing points to the figure of the ""jew"" as the litmus test of multicultural society.

Providing a comprehensive generic study of Holocaust literature, this volume enables readers to understand a genre in which boundaries are often blurred between history fiction, autobiography and memoir. It offers a guide to holocaust literature, along with an annotated bibliography, chronology, and further reading list.