Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Why George Saunders Loves Isaac Babel And Nadezhda Mandelstam

George Saunders has been credited with helping reinvent American fiction: In 2017, Zadie Smith wrote that “Within the universe of American writing, there really is a continent called GeorgeSaunders-Land, where the people speak funny, and the social contract has either broken down or been bent out of all recognition.”

Saunders has yet to be deemed a savior of Jewish literature — until now.

How so, given that his own writing is, er, not Jewish? Reference his list, published today by Vulture, of his 10 favorite books. On that list are books by Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, Isaac Babel, Philip Glass, Michael Herr and Nadezhda Mandelstam. Not only are three-fifths of Saunders’s favorite books by Jewish authors; half of those authors are by often-overlooked Jewish women. I’ve been writing about Jewish literature for the Forward for close to three years, during which time I’ve heard much about the work Mandelstam’s husband, the poet Osip Mandelstam, but not a peep about her literary accomplishments.

Leave demographics aside: The range of Jewish writing encompassed in Saunders’s picks is well worth celebrating. Olsen wrote fiction and nonfiction, but “Silences,” the book of hers that Saunders recommends, is a study of literary history focused on the voices that history has often excluded. Isaac Babel’s “The Essential Fictions” is, well, as close to essential Jewish 20th-century fiction as it gets. “Hope Against Hope,” Mandelstam’s memoir, is one of the most searing recollections of Jewish life in Soviet Russia. Michael Herr’s “Dispatches”, a mix of reportage and fiction about the Vietnam War, challenged literary ideas about journalism and memory. Philip Glass’s memoir “Words Without Music” gives, Saunders writes, “a glimpse of a vanished country (ours, circa 1940s/1950s/1960s) that had an entirely different notion of education and the arts;” “A Grace Paley Reader: Stories, Essays, and Poetry” is a bravura display of literary polymathy.

All of which is to say that George Saunders has a uniquely extensive appreciation for Jewish literature, in all its various forms. The more he preaches that appreciation to the world, the better.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.