SOURCE: Milbauer, Asher Z. “I. B. Singer: The Convergence of Art and Faith.” In Transcending Exile: Conrad, Nabokov, I. B. Singer, pp. 73-120. Miami: Florida International University Press, 1985.

In the excerpt below, Milbauer focuses on Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel Shosha as a vehicle for the writer's commenting both on his own destiny as an exile and on the collective destiny of the Jewish people.

Binele, I won't abandon you. I swear by the soul of your mother.

I. B. Singer, “The Lecture”

I will make it so you will live forever.

I. B. Singer, Shosha

In 1967, in the December issue of Playboy magazine, I. B. Singer published one of his best short stories, “The Lecture.” This short piece, included later in the collection The Seance and Other Stories, can rightfully stand as an epigraph for the Yiddish writer's entire literary production. The theme of an exiled writer's efforts...