Translating Sholem Aleichem

Book excerpt: Sholem Aleichem, whose 150th anniversary was commemorated in March 2009, remains one of the most popular Yiddish authors. But few people today are able to read the original. Since the 1910s, however, Sholem Aleichem's works have been known to a wider international audience through, numerous translations, and through film and theatre adaptations, most famously Fiddler on the Root. This volume examines those translations published in Europe, with the aim of investigating how the specific European contexts might have shaped translations of Yiddish literature. The contributors are Gennady Estraikh, Alexander Frenkel, Roland Gruschka, Alexandra Hoffman, Kerstin Hoge, Sabine Koller, Mikhail Krutikov, Olga Litvak, Eugenia Prokop-Janiec, Gabriella Safran, Jan Schwarz, and Anna Verschik. Book jacket.