Enemies, A Love Story

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This article is about the novel. For the 1989 film, see Enemies, A Love Story (film).
Enemies, A Love Story
Enemiesalovestorycover.jpg
First English edition
AuthorIsaac Bashevis Singer
Original titleSonim, di Geshichte fun a Liebe
TranslatorAliza Shevrin and Elizabeth Shrub
CountryUnited States
LanguageYiddish
PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date
1966
Published in English
1972
Media typePrint (Paperback & Hardback)
Pages228 pp
ISBN0-374-51522-0
OCLC31348418

Enemies, A Love Story (Yiddish: Sonim, di Geshichte fun a Liebe) is a novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer first published serially in the Jewish Daily Forward in 1966.[1] The English translation was published in 1972.[2]

Plot summary[]

Set in New York City in 1949, the novel follows Holocaust survivor Herman Broder. Throughout the war he survived in a hayloft, taken care of by his non-Jewish, Polish servant, Yadwiga, whom he later takes as his wife in America. Meanwhile, he has an affair with another Holocaust survivor, Masha. To Yadwiga, he poses as a traveling book-salesman despite the fact he is simply a ghost writer for a corrupt rabbi. He wanders about New York with a constant paranoia and perpetual desperation, made more complicated when his first wife from Poland, Tamara, who was thought to be killed in the Holocaust, comes to New York.

Critical reception[]

The New York Times wrote that "Singer's marvelously pointed humor has turned black and bitter, the sex is flat, and there is little irony or selfconsciousness."[3]

Adaptations[]

The book was adapted for the theater by Sarah Schulman and premiered at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia in 2007.[4]

An eponymous film, based on the book and directed by Paul Mazursky, was released in 1989.[5]

The novel was adapted as an opera by Ben Moore; it premiered at Palm Beach Opera in 2015.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ "YIVO | Singer, Isaac Bashevis". yivoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2019-08-25.
  2. ^ ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY by Isaac Bashevis Singer | Kirkus Reviews.
  3. ^ Dickstein, Lore (June 25, 1972). "Demons of Paranoia" – via NYTimes.com.
  4. ^ Jones, Kenneth (February 7, 2007). "Wilma Theater Brings Nobel Laureate's Enemies, A Love Story to Stage". Playbill. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  5. ^ Travers, Peter (December 13, 1989). "Enemies: A Love Story".
  6. ^ "WEST PALM BEACH: Enemies, A Love Story". Opera News. Retrieved 26 March 2016.


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