Isaac Bashevis Singer was born Icek-Hersz Zynger in Radzymin, Poland, on July 14, 1904. He was the son of a rabbi, and the grandson of two rabbis. Singer spent his youth studying sacred Jewish texts, such as the Torah, the Cabala, and the Talmud, in preparation for a life as a rabbi.

Singer spent his childhood years in Warsaw and in the shtetl—the term used to describe the exclusively Jewish villages throughout Eastern Europe that were wiped out during Adolph Hitler's campaign against the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s— of Radzymin, Poland. While these locales had a major influence in the settings and references in his stories, Singer's single greatest influence was his older brother, Israel Joshua Singer, a secular Yiddish writer.

Singer forsook his intended career as a rabbi and followed his brother's path, first heading to a writer's club in Warsaw. He...