Identity and the British-Jewish novel

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American Jewish writers flourish, but Englishness and Jewishness seem mutually contradictory. Read the article byLINDA GRANT

Linda Grant, photographed by Charlie Hopkinson, © 2010

In 1937 the teenaged Irving Howe, future literary critic, excitedly unwrapped the very first edition of Partisan Review and read the short story “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” by Delmore Schwartz, written a couple of years earlier over a July weekend when Schwartz was 21. The story is about a young man who goes into a cinema and sees on the screen the unfolding images of his own parents’ courtship, including a trip to Coney Island culminating in a marriage proposal, which causes the narrator to rise from his seat and deliver one of the funniest pay-offs in literature.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2012/05/identity-and-british-jewish-novel

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