Tropical Synagogues: Short Stories by Jewish-Latin American Writers (review)

Book Reviews 135 between the good citizen and the dangerous artist, the teller and the tale, is always problematic, always tangled, always in flux. Michael Shapiro Department of English University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana Tropical Synagogues: Short Stories byJewish-Latin American Writers, edited by Han Stavans. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1994. 239 pp. $34.95. Literatur~ written by Jewish Latin American authors is by no means new to Latin American letters; however, it has been historically marginalized and only recently has begun to be recognized as a significant and valuable socioliterary phenomenon. There have been a number of critical studies published both in Spanish and in English within the past ten years which seek to bring literature written by Jewish authors in Latin America to the forefront. While Latin American Jewish literature has begun to be more widely recognized within the rather closed circles of Latin American literary studies, it has yet to gain an international following. This is due iJ) large part to a lack of translations, which is indeed curious given the fact that Latin American literature continues to be widely translated into English (as well as many other languages) and enjoys an immense international readership. There are a few Jewish Latin American authors who have attained international recognition through translation: Moacyr Scliar and Clarice Lispector from Brazil, Isaac Goldemberg from Peru, and Ariel Dorfman from Chile, for example. Nonetheless, the wide majority of their fellow writers are known only to a Spanish- and/or Portuguesespeaking public, and even so many remain on the margins of literary notoriety. Tropical Synagogues, edited by the Mexican Jewish writer Han Stavans, is an important anthology of short fiction which will bring a sampling of the immense corpus of literature by Jewish Latin American authors to an English-speaking audience. Many of the authors included in the anthology are presented for the first time in English translation. They represent countries as diverse as Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, and Mexico, covering a wide gamut of topics as they portray the social milieu of Latin American reality from a Jewish perspective. While this anthology is not the first of its kind, it does constitute a vast improvement over its predecessor 136 SHOFAR Winter 1995 Vol. 13, No.2 (Echad: An Anthology ofLatin Americanjewish Writings, edited by Robert and Roberta Kalechofsky [Marblehead, MA: Micah Publications, 1980]). Its publication by a large press such as Holmes & Meier will also ensure that it reaches a wider audience. One of the most interesting aspects of the anthology is Stavans's inclusion of three stories by famed Argentine writer jorge Luis Borges. While Borges himself was not jewish, it would not be an exaggeration to state that his writing is one of the best examples of jewish literature in Latin America. There are numerous critical analyses which link Borges's style to the Kabbalah and other textual jewish traditions, metaphors, and imagery. Borges's stories are grouped in an appendix titled "The Mythical jew." Stavans has also written a very interesting introduction in which he provides ancillary historical and demographic information to accompany his discussion of Latin American jewish literature. He defines jewish Latin American writing as a minority literature and utilizes the trope of the tropical synagogue in order to unite both jewish and Latin American elements which together characterize this literary tradition. Stavans finds -four specific concerns reflected in this literature: assimilation and jewish tradition, antisemitism and its impact on jewish identity, the often violent sociopolitical realities of Latin America as well as its passive response to '\ the Shoah, and lastly, elements of the supernatural or the fantastic. He aptly begins his discussion of this body of literature with Alberto Gerchunoff , considered to be the patriarch of jewish Latin American letters, followed by a general presentation of jewish literature in the various countries represented in the anthology; he dedicates specific sections to the discussion of the works of both jorge 'Luis Borges and Moacyr Scliar. He also discusses the uses of jewish themes and/or characters by nonjewish writers such as Ruben Dario, Leopoldo Lugones, Carlos Fuentes, jose Emilio Pacheco, and Mario Vargas Llosa. He concludes the introduction with a comparison ofjewish Latin American literature to jewish North...