Elegy for the Soviet Yiddish Writers

A novelist and poet, Chaim Grade is considered one of the giants of Yiddish literature, particularly in the postwar period. Born in Vilna, Grade was educated in the yeshivas of the moralist musar movement, which emphasized extreme ethical piety and harsh introspection. Although he left this milieu at the age of twenty-two, the religious ideology of his early years left an undeniable imprint on his later work. A member of the literary group Yung-Vilne (Young Vilna), Grade achieved quick success both as a poet with a distinctive, prophetic voice and as an award-winning novelist. After the war, Grade settled in the United States, where he published his most famous works, both poetry and novels. These explored themes such as survival and guilt, rage and remembrance, the sacred and the profane, and the failure of both secularism and religion to respond adequately to the Holocaust. He is perhaps best remembered for his later novel-length portrayals of Vilna Jewry, richly described in all its complexity and color.