Enemies, A Love Story

Enemies, A Love Story (Yiddish: Sonim, di Geshichte fun a Liebe‎) is a novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer first published serially in the Jewish Daily Forward in 1966.[1] The English translation was published in 1972.[2]

This article is about the novel. For the 1989 film, see Enemies, A Love Story (film).
Enemies, A Love Story
First English edition
AuthorIsaac Bashevis Singer
Original titleSonim, di Geshichte fun a Liebe
TranslatorAliza Shevrin and Elizabeth Shrub
CountryUnited States
LanguageYiddish
PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date
1966
Published in English
1972
Media typePrint (Paperback & Hardback)
Pages228 pp
ISBN0-374-51522-0
OCLC31348418

Plot summary

Set in New York City in 1949, the novel follows Holocaust survivor Herman Broder. Throughout the war he survived in a hayloft, taken care of by his non-Jewish, Polish servant, Yadwiga, whom he later takes as his wife in America. Meanwhile, he has an affair with another Holocaust survivor, Masha. To Yadwiga, he poses as a traveling book-salesman despite the fact he is simply a ghost writer for a corrupt rabbi. He wanders about New York with a constant paranoia and perpetual desperation, made more complicated when his first wife from Poland, Tamara, who was thought to be killed in the Holocaust, comes to New York.

Critical reception

The New York Times wrote that "Singer's marvelously pointed humor has turned black and bitter, the sex is flat, and there is little irony or selfconsciousness."[3]

Adaptations

The book was adapted for the theater by Sarah Schulman and premiered at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia in 2007.[4]

An eponymous film, based on the book and directed by Paul Mazursky, was released in 1989.[5]

The novel was adapted as an opera by Ben Moore; it premiered at Palm Beach Opera in 2015.[6]

References
  1. "YIVO | Singer, Isaac Bashevis". yivoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2019-08-25.
  2. ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY by Isaac Bashevis Singer | Kirkus Reviews.
  3. Dickstein, Lore (June 25, 1972). "Demons of Paranoia" – via NYTimes.com.
  4. Jones, Kenneth (February 7, 2007). "Wilma Theater Brings Nobel Laureate's Enemies, A Love Story to Stage". Playbill. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  5. Travers, Peter (December 13, 1989). "Enemies: A Love Story".
  6. "WEST PALM BEACH: Enemies, A Love Story". Opera News. Retrieved 26 March 2016.


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