A Man and His Parrot

Born in Bialystok, the short-story writer José Rabinovich immigrated to Buenos Aires in 1924. He worked first as a typesetter and later owned a printing press. He began writing, in Yiddish, before his emigration, but after some time in Argentina he switched to Spanish. Many of his early stories were subsequently translated and published in Spanish. His stories feature poverty-stricken, downtrodden Jews who often suffer extreme degradation and debasement, especially during World War I and the turmoil that followed it. Even his fiction about East European Jews who have settled in Argentina highlights the disappointments of everyday life. He also wrote poetry and dramatic works.