Contemporary Jewish Writing in Brazil: An Anthology

Preface

This research project, the critical introduction, and the ensuing translations anthologized here represent the first panorama of twentiethcentury Brazilian Jewish fiction available to an English-speaking audience .AlthoughtherehavebeenseveralEnglishtranslationsofBrazilian Jewish fiction beyond the works of Clarice Lispector, whose own body of work has been translated into English and other languages (but for the most part has not been read within a Jewish context), none has been comprehensive. This volume aims to fill the gap with a broad, representative selection of modern Brazilian Jewish narratives—stories , chronicles, and excerpts from novellas and novels. Since this selection also represents the first extensive anthology of Brazilian Jewish writing in English as well as in Portuguese, one of the goals of this project is to provide a critical and sociocultural context for understanding these voices. Thus the introduction, which includes, beyond the analyses of the texts and their authors, a sociocultural and historical framework along with a theoretical focus on the concepts of diaspora and identity. Recentcriticalstudiescontinuetotreatdiasporaasaviabletheoretical approach, but a study such as Sander L. Gilman’s Jewish Frontiers (2003) introduces a new perspective by considering the intriguing concept of ‘frontier’ as a means of rereading Jewish history, an idea that can also be applied to literature. Reference to Gilman’s study is important here because his idea of frontier seeks to go beyond the familiar Jewish experientialdilemmaofcenter/peripherythattheoriesondiasporaand borderlands customarily explore and develop. I agree with Gilman that his concept of the ‘frontier’ can be seen as an imaginary space of contestation and accommodation, of dispute and conciliation, where no group is privileged and there is no distinction between victims and oppressors, and I have applied this concept to several recent studies Preface x preface on Brazilian Jewish contemporary writing. Certainly Gilman’s frontier tropes of negotiation, alteration, and construction are applied in this introduction.However,thetheoryofdiasporaisespeciallyenlightening within the sociohistorical context of this volume, which underscores thesenseofdispersion,displacement,anddisregardmanifestedinthe texts of many twentieth-century Brazilian Jewish writers. The critical context of diaspora is also well suited to this volume in consideration of Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin’s findings in their study Powers of Diaspora: Two Essays on the Relevance of Jewish Culture (2002), which focuses on the idea of new diasporas beyond nation-states in light of today’s transnational, global, cultural, and economic spheres. To underscore their argument, they focus on the paradoxical power and cultural consciousness of diaspora as primarily consisting of the two forces of ‘contingency’ and ‘genealogy.’ Such tension between the two forces of sociocultural contingency and Jewish genealogy (ancestral tradition) emerges in many of the Brazilian Jewish writings included here, thereby underscoring the need to read this literature within a diasporic context. On the other hand, recent studies on identity formation have explored the concept of not privileging any single identity in light of the fact that ethnicity does not necessarily shape destiny. As Amartya Sen, in his Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (2006), emphatically states, ‘Life is not mere destiny.’ This stance, which questions the potential violence embedded, for example, in fundamentalist postures, ultimately challenges the reality, ethics, or even authenticity of maintaining a sole identity. In this vein, the notion of community and concern for the other, involving interaction and dialogue, emerges as a new sociopolitical pathway for understanding multiple identities and changing circumstances, issues that many of these Brazilian Jewish writers dramatize in their fiction. I began conducting research on Jewish writing in Brazil more than twenty-five years ago. This undertaking has resulted in several publications encompassing literary theory, criticism, analysis, and translation, all with the objective of interpreting the meaning and significance of this rich ethnic expression and its implications for understanding Brazilian culture. Although in existence for little more than half a century, modern Brazilian Jewish writing is notable because it not only contributes to the expanding corpus of ethnic literature in Brazil but also represents one of the most productive and enduring forms preface xi of that expression within Brazilian letters. Therefore, with the goal of presenting Brazilian Jewish voices in as coherent and accessible fashion as possible, this volume strives to inform as well as to draw an English-reading audience into a realm that manifests the New World experience of multiple migrations, not only in the Southern Hemisphere of Latin America but also, by extension, in relation to the migratory experiences in the northern universe of America and Canada. In other words, one finds...