The Street: A Novel

The Yiddish novelist and poet Yisroel Rabon grew up in Baluty, an impoverished quarter near Lódz that he described in his novel Balut: roman fun a forshtot (1934). Rabon spent most of his life in Lódz but escaped to Vilna after the German invasion of Poland; there he was shot to death. Rabon’s realistic fiction and poetry show marginalized youths and soldiers in urban settings; his writings explore homelessness, sex, and violence. Rabon was also an editor, translator, and writer of pulp fiction.