The Object of Jewish Literature

A history of modern Jewish literature that explores our enduring attachment to the book as an object With the rise of digital media, the death of the book has been widely discussed. But the physical object of the book persists. Here, through the lens of materiality and objects, Barbara E. Mann tells a history of modern Jewish literature, from novels and poetry to graphic novels and artists books. Bringing contemporary work on secularism and design in conversation with literary history, she offers a new and distinctive frame for understanding how literary genres emerge. The long twentieth century, a period of tremendous physical upheaval and geographic movement, witnessed the production of a multilingual canon of writing by Jewish authors. Literatures objecthood is felt not only in the physical qualities of booksbindings, covers, typography, illustrationsbut also through the ways in which materiality itself became a practical foundation for literary expression.