Jewish-Latin American Literature

chapter 15
Jewish-Latin American Literature

Darrell B. Lockhart
Jewish-Latin American literary studies has burgeoned into a flourishing

field of critical inquiry in the twenty-first century, which is nourished by an
astounding production of literary texts written by authors from a majority
of the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America.
While such an assertion will come as no surprise to the limited number
of critics who study it, Jewish-Latin American literature still remains
a clandestine and unfamiliar enterprise on a global scale. In one of the
seminal essays on Jewish writing in Latin America, critic Saúl Sosnowski
remarked: “When in addition to Latin American one adds the defining
term Jewish, it is easy to recall astonished gazes and conflicting images of
the accepted and simple clichés for both.”1 Three decades later this declara-
tion still holds true to a large extent, particularly outside of Latin America,
where there continues to be little knowledge or awareness of the breadth of
Jewish Literature, and scant availability of texts in English translation (or
other languages) that would aid in introducing this vast literary corpus to
a global readership. It remains, therefore, something of a regional phenom-
enon and is further compartmentalized by the fact that even within Latin
America, national texts rarely cross borders. Argentine readers, for exam-
ple, are woefully unaware of what Mexican authors in general are writing,
let alone Jewish-Mexican authors, and vice versa. The same can be said for
any combination of countries, even those that border one another such as
Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile in the Southern Cone. The case of Brazil is
even more insular, given that it is very much a Lusophone island within
a Spanish-speaking continent.
The aforementioned is a consequence of several circumstances that
impinge upon the Jewish experience in Latin America and accordingly
have shaped the development of Jewish writing as a socioliterary phenom-
enon. First and foremost is the fact that Jewish writers face a kind of double
marginalization; they are geographically marginalized as inhabitants of
Third World nations, with all that such a categorization implies, and
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246 darrell b. lockhart
they are further marginalized as citizens of hegemonic Luso- and Hispano-
Catholic societies that are historically founded on principles of homoge-
neity in which cultural pluralism is not valued, and indeed is often
virulently opposed or rejected.2 This had led to Jewish-Latin American
literature being largely defined as a counterhegemonic discourse that is
shaped by difference and otherness. The ex/centric position of Latin
American Jews is further complicated by contemporary debates about
what constitutes Jewish Literature, with such factors as nationality, lan-
guage, ethnicity, and religiosity coming into play. For example, can or
should the work of an entirely secular Jewish author with negligible Jewish
content (thematically, linguistically, and so on) be considered Jewish
Literature? Likewise, can or should the work of non-Jewish authors
whose works contain considerable Jewish content be considered as
Jewish Literature? One thinks in this regard of such renowned Latin
American authors as Jorge Luis Borges or Gabriela Mistral, both of
whom wrote extensively on Jewish topics.
The vast majority of Jewish writers in Latin America are, in fact,
reluctant to be labeled as solely “Jewish authors,” preferring to be known
simply as literary authors whose works sometimes, though certainly not
exclusively, are centered on Jewish themes, history, or identity. While in
the main, Jewish-Latin American writing resides at the periphery of
national literatures, there are numerous instances of its presence at the
center. A few of the most salient examples of Jewish authors who have
attained the status of national prominence as writers and who by no means
could be described as marginal/marginalized include Margo Glantz and
Sabina Berman (Mexico), Mauricio Rosencof (Uruguay), Isaac Chocrón
(Venezuela), Samuel Rovinski (Costa Rica), Marcos Aguinis, Santiago
Kovadloff, and Ana María Shua (Argentina), Clarice Lispector and
Moacyr Scliar (Brazil).
The topic/title itself of this chapter is problematic. I have initiated my
discussion by referring to Jewish-Latin American literature as if it were
a practicable category, but really it is not. This is so because to speak of
Latin America as if it were a homogenous region in which the countries
that comprise it are more like the provinces of one large nation state is
erroneous and fraught with false assumptions. One must recognize that
there are sundry, profound differences and disparities that make each Latin
American nation unique. The diversity of cultural, historical, geographical,
political, economic, ethnic, and linguistic variation presents a challenge, to
say the least, to defining exactly what is meant by “Latin America.” To turn
again to the geographic poles of Mexico and Argentina, the two countries
Jewish-Latin American Literature 247
share little if any mutual commonalities. Even the seemingly apparent
common denominator of language sets them apart, since the linguistic
idiosyncrasies of the Mexican and Argentine dialects of Spanish are sig-
nificantly different. It is more suitable, and perhaps more useful, to speak
of Jewish-Argentine, Jewish-Mexican, Jewish-Chilean, Jewish-Brazilian
(and so on) literature because while the umbrella term of Jewish-Latin
American seemingly encompasses a singular identity, the diverse national
particularities are sufficiently abundant to provide the quality of unique-
ness as to how Jews have become assimilated into and participate in the
societies of distinct Latin American nations.
Notwithstanding the above caveats, the purpose of this essay is to
provide a panorama of Jewish Literature throughout the Latin American
continent. In this regard, there has been substantial debate on how to
proceed with speaking of, naming, and defining the various ethnic bound-
aries of Jewish Latin Americans/Latin American Jews. As I have pointed
out elsewhere,3 this debate came to the fore in the introductory essay of the
volume Pertenencia y alteridad. Judíos en/de América Latina: cuarenta años
de cambios (Belonging and alterity. Jews in/from Latin America: Forty
years of change).4
The editors are keen to point out the problematical positioning of
semantic and syntactic qualifiers that result in multiple signifiers. There
are ideological and political implications on the placement of the qualifier
“Jewish” in relation to Latin American. Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein
persuasively suggest using the term “Jewish-Latin American” – and by
extension Jewish-Argentine, etc. – rather than other formulations, because
it “emphasizes national identity without denying the possibility of
a Diasporic identity.”5 It can also be a mistake to consider, for example,
Jewish-Mexicans as a homogenenous community given the intraethnic
distinctions between Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, and even the large
Shami and Halabi communities of Mexico. The definition that I propose
for speaking in general terms of Jewish-Latin American literature is to
approach it as a body of writing that speaks to the specificity of the diverse
cultural, ethnic, religious (and secular) experiences not as detached from
but as part of distinct Latin American national realities and all the socio-
cultural components that impinge on and contribute to identity forma-
tion. Jewish-Latin American literature, much like other minority
literatures (Afro-Latin American, indigenous, queer), contributes to broad-
ening the notion of Latin American reality and social experience.
This essay aims to present to the non-specialized reader a summary
introduction to key foundational authors and texts, some major thematic
trends that are unique to the Jewish experience in different Latin American
countries, and to identify new directions in the twenty-first century. Such
a brief panorama will necessarily be riddled with omissions. It is impossible
to provide a complete portrait of the vast and varied record of Jewish
Literature in Latin America in a single essay. A conservative estimate would
be that Jewish writers (both deceased and living) in Latin America would
number somewhere between 700 and up to 1,000, with the number of
literary texts reaching well into the thousands. Argentina, by far, has the
largest number of Jewish writers by mere virtue of the history of immigra-
tion to that country and has therefore received the lion’s share of critical
attention. Between roughly 1880 and 1920, thousands of Ashkenazic Jews
from Russia and Eastern Europe reached Argentina to settle on the
agricultural colonies established by Baron Maurice de Hirsch in an effort
to rescue them from pogroms and settle them in a new “promised land” on
the Argentine pampas. At the height of immigration, Argentina had the
fifth largest Jewish population in the world. Argentina is followed by
Mexico and Brazil, both with significant numbers of Jewish writers. It is
the literature from these three nations that has received the most attention,
often at the expense of writers in other countries such as Uruguay and
Chile, and to a much greater extent Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, and
Costa Rica.
Jewish writing throughout Latin America follows somewhat predict-
able patterns of development throughout the twentieth century. It is
born out of the immigrant experience, with many of the early authors
writing first in Yiddish and then transitioning into Spanish or
Portuguese. This writing is characterized by such themes as alienation
in a new and foreign environment, nostalgia, the struggle to gain accep-
tance, and economic hardship. Second-generation authors (first-
generation Latin Americans) write about assimilation into the dominant
culture, interfamilial conflict that arises from the clash between tradition
and new values, the loss of language, and the waning of religious practice
in favor of a secular lifestyle. Third- and fourth-generation writers often
seek a return to and recovery of ethnoreligious identity as Jews, compos-
ing texts that recount family histories or retell the history of the Jewish
presence in Latin America. Jewish authors have been prolific creators in
all literary genres, excelling in the novel, short story, poetry, drama, and
essay; though this chapter focuses primarily on narrative. The foregoing
is meant to contextualize the diverse aspects of Jewish writing throughout
Latin America and present some of the problems that arise when exam-
ining this body of literature.
Foundations
While the history of Jewish Literature in Latin America belongs primarily
to the twentieth century, there are a few examples of early texts that serve
as precursors to what will become an identifiable corpus of Jewish-Latin
American literature. The first of these dates back to the colonial era in
Mexico and the legendary history of the Carvajal family, among the most
famous of crypto-Jewish families in the New World. Luis Rodríguez de
Carvajal, more commonly known as Luis de Carvajal, el Mozo
(1567–1596), was the nephew of Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva, who
rose to prominence as the Governor of Nueva León. Luis de Carvajal, el
Mozo was tried for Judaizing on two occasions and suffered torture at the
hands of the Inquisition before ultimately being burned at the stake
on December 8, 1596 in an auto-da-fé along with his mother and three
sisters. Prior to his death, he had changed his name to José/Iosef
Lumbroso, affirming his commitment to Judaism. He left behind
a number of texts, but the most well known is his testimonial autobio-
graphy Vida (Life) written between 1592 and his death. The story of
Carvajal and his family has been the subject of various contemporary
retellings. The famous Jewish-Mexican director Arturo Ripstein made
the 1974 film El Santo Oficio (The Holy Office) based on the Inquisition
trials of the Carvajal family. One of Mexico’s most celebrated playwrights
Sabina Berman wrote several versions of a play based on Carvajal.
The final version, En el nombre de Dios (In the name of God), was
completed in 1992. Likewise, the Argentine dramatist Jacobo Kaufman
published his play Carvajal: el testamento de Joseph Lumbroso (Carvajal:
the testament of Joseph Lumbroso) in 1994. A second early Jewish text is
the nineteenth-century Romantic novel María (1867) by Colombian
author Jorge Isaacs. Most critics of Latin American literature probably
would not consider (or accept) María to be a “Jewish” text. Doris
Sommer, nevertheless, has been instrumental in demonstrating that not
only is María one of Latin America’s foundational fictions, but that it
indeed is very much a text centered on the Jewish identity of the epon-
ymous protagonist and informed by the author’s own identity as a Jew.6
These two examples notwithstanding, Jewish-Latin American literature
did not begin to truly develop until the early twentieth century. The first
significant literary production was written in Yiddish, primarily in
Argentina. In their La letra ídish en tierra argentina: bio-bibliografia de sus
autores literarios (Yiddish letters in the land of Argentina: Bio-bibliography
of literary authors), Ana E. Weinstein and Eliahu Toker identify 127
immigrant authors who wrote literary texts in Yiddish.7 Most prominent
among these is Mordejai Alpersohn, considered the dean of Yiddish
literature in Argentina. He was born in Russia in 1860 and immigrated
to Argentina in 1891 where he settled in the agricultural colony of Colonia
Mauricio. He published numerous novels and plays in his lifetime, one of
the most famous being the novel Der Lindzshero (1937).8 The title is taken
from the Argentine slang term el linyera, which refers to an itinerant
worker. Yiddish writing in Mexico also dates to the first quarter of the
twentieth century. The three principal authors of Yiddish literature were,
first and foremost, Jacobo (Yaacov) Glantz (the father of Margo Glantz),
Moishe Glicovsky, and Isaac (Yizhak) Berliner. The famous text Dray vegn
(Three roads) gathered together the poems of all three authors in one
volume. It was much later published in Spanish (1997) as Tres caminos.
An excellent selection of Yiddish writing from Latin America is found in
Alan Astro’s Yiddish South of the Border (2003).9 One of the first writers to
make the transition from Yiddish to Spanish was the Argentine author José
Rabinovich, who wrote several of his early texts first in Yiddish, which were
later translated into Spanish. One prime example is his novel Tercera clase
(Third class), which became a fundamental text of Argentine social
realism.10
The urtext of Jewish Literature in Spanish is Alberto Gerchunoff’s 1910
Los gauchos judíos (first translated into English as The Jewish Gauchos of the
Pampas).11 Gerchunoff was commissioned by the author Leopoldo
Lugones to write a specifically Jewish work that would contribute to the
cultural festivities in celebration of the Argentine centennial. Gerchunoff’s
text – which takes place in Moisésville, the most famous of the agricultural
colonies – is often taken to task for its rather idyllic representation of the
immigrant experience and his eagerness to appease the Argentine establish-
ment. Nevertheless, Los gauchos judíos has stood the test of time as one of
the foundational works of Jewish-Argentine literature. It should be noted
that Gerchunoff wrote many other texts, most of which have yet to receive
the proper critical appraisal that they deserve. Some critics, such as Edna
Aizenberg, have made the call to put Los gauchos judíos to rest and
concentrate on the impact of his other works. In this regard, Aizenberg
has recently focused on Gerchunoff’s strident anti-Nazi stance in his later
years as the tragedy in Europe began to unfold.12 Another key text
that addresses the immigrant agricultural experience is the often
overlooked collection of stories Los judíos de Las Acacias (The Jews of Las
Acacias) by Rebeca Mactas, the granddaughter of Mordejai Alpersohn.13
Her stories take place in the fictional locale of Las Acacias, understood to be
Colonia Mauricio, near the town of Carlos Casares where she was born.
Her tales convey an unambiguously different tone than those of
Gerchunoff. Her characters live the agricultural experience in its post-
heyday period, when the colonies are in decline and farmers struggle to eke
out a living. Unique to her stories is the decidedly feminine perspective of
her characters. She is one of the first Jewish women to publish literary texts
in Latin America and in that sense led the way for the many that would
follow her. Among the considerable body of works that depict life in the
pioneer colonies, the play El judío Aarón (Aaron the Jew) by Samuel
Eichelbaum is unique.14 First, because it is one of the few dramatic
works to do so, but also for the authenticity with which Eichelbaum
portrays life on the colonies as rife with conflict, pettiness, and corruption.
Eichelbaum also wrote a series of short stories about the colonies, but he is
best known as a major figure in early twentieth-century Argentine theater.
Once the agricultural colonies fell into decline and ultimately were
abandoned, Jewish Literature quickly became an urban phenomenon in
Argentina. Jews were quick to establish a strong presence in all areas such as
booksellers, editors, publishers, and translators.15 Among the major writers
of this initial urban phase were César Tiempo (pseudonym of Israel
Zeitlin), Enrique Espinoza (pseudonym of Samuel Glusberg), and
Carlos M. Grünberg. Espinoza’s stories in the collection La levita gris:
cuentos judíos de ambiente porteño (The grey frockcoat: Jewish stories of
Buenos Aires) are urban tales of Jews coping with life in Buenos Aires and
provide excellent detail on what life was like in the capital during the
1920s.16 Carlos Grünberg and César Tiempo became two of the most
prolific and influential poets of their generation and were instrumental in
establishing a strong Jewish-Argentine poetic tradition. Outspoken and
candid about their Jewishness, they sought earnestly to incorporate Jewish
issues into their work and to forge a poetic expression of identity informed
by their unique dual cultural heritage. Grünberg’s Mester de judería
(Minstrelsy of the Jews), a play on the medieval Spanish tradition of mester
de juglaría, and his Junto a un río de Babel (By a river in Babel) are
considered masterpieces.17
César Tiempo was an exceedingly prolific author who wrote poetry,
dramatic works, and multiple volumes of essays. Of his many works, one
that stands out is his Versos de una . . . (Verses of a . . .), a volume of poetry
that perpetrated a hoax. What is left unstated, but implied, by the ellipsis in
the title is versos de una puta, or verses of a whore. The supposed author is
identified as Clara Béter, one of the infamous polacas, or Polish (read
Jewish), prostitutes that were prominent during the period. The book
was initially received with great acclaim when it was believed that Clara
Béter had written so poignantly about her life and her plight. When it was
revealed that Tiempo was in fact the author it caused a great deal of scandal
among literary circles and the public alike.18
The history of Jewish prostitutes in Buenos Aires (and to a lesser extent
Brazil) is considered by many to be one of the stains on the Jewish
community and the source of much shame. However, it has also served
as the inspiration for a significant body of literature, starting with Tiempo’s
volume of poetry. The Jewish crime organization known as the Zwi Migdal
operated in Buenos Aires for a number of decades in the early twentieth
century. Jewish men would travel primarily to Poland to deceive young
Jewish women into marriage and immigration to Argentina with the false
hope of a better life in America. Once in Buenos Aires, the women were
coerced into houses of prostitution. The operation was known as the trata
de blancas, or white slave trade, and became so widely known that authors
Shalom Asch, Sholem Aleichem, and Isaac Bashevis Singer all wrote stories
about it. In Argentina, numerous authors have written literary works about
the trata de blancas, which include the play Una tal Raquel (A Certain
Raquel) by Nora Glickman and the novel La polaca (The Jewish woman)
by Myrtha Schalom, both of which tell the story of Raquel Liberman, the
most famous polaca who is credited with bringing down the Zwi Migdal.19
More recent literary treatments of the topic include Edgardo Cozarinsky’s
El rufián moldavo (The Moldavian Pimp) and Elsa Drucaroff’s El infierno
prometido: una prostituta de la Zwi Migdal (The promised hell: a prostitute
of the Zwi Migdal). The trata de blancas extended into Brazil as is depicted
in Moacyr Scliar’s novel O ciclo das águas (The cycle of waters) and Esther
Largman’s Jovens polacas (Young Jewish women).20
If male writers dominated literary production in the early to mid-
twentieth century, by the 1970s women authors were beginning to have
a real impact on Jewish Literature in Latin America. One of the first to gain
a significant reputation as a writer was Argentine Alicia Steimberg, whose
1971 novel Músicos y relojeros (Musicians and Watchmakers) made a major
splash when it was published. From there her career blossomed and she
published many other works including Cuando digo Magdalena (Call me
Magdalena), which became the second of her works to be standard reading
within Jewish-Latin American literature.21 A plethora of women writers
would follow from throughout Latin America, many writing (semi-)auto-
biographical narratives: from Argentina, Ana María Shua, El libro de los
recuerdos (The book of memories), Manuela Fingueret, Blues de la calle
Leiva (Leiva Street blues); from Uruguay, Teresa Porzecanski, Perfumes de
Cartago (Perfumes of Carthage); from Mexico, Margo Glantz, Las
genealogías (The Family Tree), Sabina Berman, La bobe (Bobe), and Rosa
Nissán, Novia que te vea (Like a Bride), to name but a small sampling.22
The most famous woman writer from Brazil, and by many accounts from
Latin America, was Clarice Lispector. Her works contain scant overt
references to Jewish themes or identity, but most critics point to her style
and her worldview as indicative of the Jewish elements in her oeuvre.
Of her many works, the novel A hora da estrela (The Hour of the Star) is
most often referenced as having the closest ties to Jewishness.23 It is
a peculiar aspect of Jewish Literature in Mexico that the overwhelming
majority of writers are women: Margo Glantz, Sabina Berman, Angelina
Muñiz-Huberman, Rosa Nissán, Myriam Moscona, Esther Seligson,
Gloria Gervitz, Ethel Krauze, Sara Levi-Calderón, and Sara Sefchovich
are among the most prolific (see Lockhart and Cánovas for an overview of
Jewish writing in Mexico).24
The retelling of history, whether as family stories or historical novels, is
a common theme in Jewish-Latin American literature. Some authors
returned to the agricultural colonies as a literary site in an effort to recreate
family histories. One example of this type of storytelling can be found in
the tetralogy by Gerardo Mario Goloboff comprised by the novels Criador
de palomas (1984), La luna que cae (1989), El soñador de Smith (1990), and
Comuna verdad (1995), published collectively in English as The Algarrobos
Quartet (2002).25 Goloboff’s lyrical novels not only return to the past of the
Jewish colonies, but they also overtly deal with Argentina’s Dirty War.
In Perla Suez’s trilogy of novels, the protagonist returns to the Jewish
colonies of the Entre Ríos province to recuperate her past (Letargo, El
arresto, Complot, published collectively in English as The Entre Ríos
Trilogy). Peruvian author Isaac Goldemberg’s novels La vida a plazos de
don Jacobo Lerner (The Fragmented Life of Don Jacobo Lerner) and Tiempo
al tiempo (Play by Play) focus on the dislocated condition of diasporic
Jews.26
There are a number of historical novels that seek to recount and
vindicate the Jewish presence in Latin America. Works in this category
would include novels such as Aventuras de Edmund Ziller en tierras del
Nuevo Mundo (The adventures of Edmund Ziller in the lands of the New
World), by Pedro Orgambide (Argentina); Tierra adentro (A Mystical
Journey), by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman; A estranha nação de Rafael
Mendes (The Strange Nation of Rafael Mendes), by Moacyr Scliar (Brazil);
La gesta del marrano (The Marrano’s heroic deed), by Marcos Aguinis
(Argentina); Isaac Halevy, rey de los judíos (Isaac Halevy, king of the Jews),
by Antonio Elio Brailovksy (Argentina); Colombina descubierta (Colombina
discovered), by Alicia Freilich Segal (Venezuela); and the play Mil años, un
día (A Thousand Years, One Day), by Ricardo Halac (Argentina).27
A final major topic of Jewish-Latin American literature of the twentieth
century is that of the Shoah. Simja Sneh, a Holocaust survivor and soldier,
arrived in Argentina following the war and obtained work as a journalist.
He wrote two major works. The first is a six-volume testimonial first-
person account of his tribulations as a soldier and survivor that was written
first in Yiddish under the title Na Ve’Nad and later published in Spanish
translation as Sin rumbo (Aimless). An abridged version of Sin rumbo was
published by the National Library of Argentina in 2015, which represents
recognition of the importance of this author and his work. Sneh’s second
work is the collection of short stories El pan y la sangre (Bread and blood),
for which he received the prestigious Sash of Honor from the Argentine
Writer’s Guild. The stories are fictional, but are horrifyingly real depictions
of Nazi persecution.28 A second Holocaust survivor to make a major
literary contribution is Ana Benkel de Vinocur, who made her home in
Uruguay following liberation from Auschwitz. She wrote two testimonial
novels, Un libro sin título (A book without a title), and a sequel Luces
y sombras después de Auschwitz (Light and shadow after Auschwitz). She
passed away in 2006, and in 2015 the Uruguayan government issued a series
of commemorative postage stamps with her image to mark the seventieth
anniversary of the closure of Auschwitz and in honor of her memory.29
Multiple other authors have written on the Shoah to one extent or another.
Major texts include the novel El perro de Maidanek (The dog of Maidanek)
by Argentine José Rabinovich, along with a variety of short stories by other
Argentine authors such as Bernardo Verbitsky, Bernardo Kordon, and
Clara Weil, who are joined by Chilean author Sonia Guralnik in her
short story collection Relatos en sepia (Sepia toned stories) and Mexican
author Jaime Laventman with his tales in El espectro (The spectre), which
give graphic depictions of life in such infamous concentration camps as
Auschwitz and Dachau.30 There are two significant contributions from
Brazil that have appeared in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Michel Laub’s Diário da queda (Diary of the Fall) traces the intersecting
stories of three generations of men as it weaves a provocative meditation on
Jewish identity, ethics, and memory. The second is Noemi Jaffe’s O que os
cegos estão sonhando? (What Are the Blind Men Dreaming?) which, like
Laub’s narrative, follows three generations of women from the same family
who cope the with legacy of the horror of Auschwitz. Finally, a delightfully
entertaining novel by Colombian Marco Schwartz – El salmo de Kaplan
(Kaplan’s psalm), follows the misguided adventures of Jacobo Kaplan,
would-be Nazi hunter.31
There is a small but important body of works that address the Holocaust
in relation to the neofascist military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s in
Argentina and Uruguay and draw compelling comparisons between the
two. In his testimonial narrative Preso sin nombre, celda sin número
(Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number), the famous
Argentine journalist Jacobo Timerman relates his experience as a political
prisoner under the military dictatorship that was known as the Process of
National Reorganization, the euphemistic name given to the military
government’s war against its own citizenry. Timerman provides explicit
details of his imprisonment and torture and the “special treatment” he
received as a Jew by the generals whose political ideology was largely
informed by Nazi practices.32 In turn, Manuela Fingueret in her novel
Hija del silencio (Daughter of Silence) narrates the parallel stories of
a mother and daughter who endure imprisonment and torture; the mother
in Terezin and Auschwitz, and the daughter in a clandestine military
prison in Argentina. In her own confinement, the daughter begins to
understand her mother’s silence and distance as an act of resistance and
survival. Much in the same way, Mauricio Rosencof compares the
Holocaust to the Uruguayan military dictatorship in his novel Las cartas
que no llegaron (The Letters That Never Came). Like Fingueret’s, Rosencof’s
novel narrates the stories of father and son.33
New Directions for the Twenty-First Century

The preceding survey of some of the major themes in Jewish-Latin
American literature in the twentieth century serves as a point of departure
to discuss a few new directions that Jewish Literature is taking as it
transitions into the twenty-first century. One of the first observations to
be made is that there is a proliferation of literature by authors born
approximately in the 1960s and 1970s who are making exciting contribu-
tions to Jewish-Latin American writing. Not only is this occurring in
countries where Jewish Literature has a well-established presence, but it
is also emerging from places that have historically seen scant literary
production. One of the most salient examples can be found is the
Paraguayan author Susana Gertopan who has thus far written a family-
story trilogy of novels, El retorno de Eva (The return of Eve), Barrio
palestina (Palestine neighborhood), and El nombre prestado (The borrowed
name).34 Another example is the above-mentioned novel by Colombian
writer Marco Schwartz, in addition to the works of his compatriot Ariel
Bibliowicz, whose first novel, El rumor del astracán (The rustle of astra-
khan) appeared in 1991, but who has since produced the highly original
short story collection Sobre la faz del abismo (Over the face of the abyss).35
Brazil has produced a whole new generation of young writers, many hailing
from Porto Alegre, the home of the most famous Brazilian writer, Moacyr
Scliar. Among these writers are the previously mentioned Michel Laub and
Noemi Jaffe, in addition to Leandro Sarmatz whose play Mães e sogras
(Mothers and mothers in law) is an ingenious self-described tragicomedy
on the stereotypical figure of the overbearing Yiddishe Mame. Without
mocking Jewish motherhood, the author unveils a drama that is told with
affection, acerbic wit, and a good dose of harsh reality. He is also the author
of the brilliant and beautiful volume of poetry Logocausto. In 2012 Sarmatz
was named one of the best young Brazilian writers by Granta magazine.36
Other up-and-coming young Brazilian writers include Tatiana Salem
Levy, A chave de casa (The house key); Flávio Izhaki, Amanhã não tem
ninguém (Tomorrow has no one); Julián Fuks, A resistência (The resis-
tance); and Rafael Bán Jacobsen, Uma leve simetria (A slight symmetry).37
A refreshing new voice in Jewish-Chilean literature is that of Eliah
Germani who has published two excellent collections of short stories,
Volver a Berlín (Returning to Berlin) and Objetos personales (Personal
belongings). Likewise, the novel Rosen: Una historia judía (Rosen: A
Jewish story) by Argentine author Diego Paszkowski is one of the most
original novels from Argentina in recent years.38
Another noticeable trend is an increase in literary texts that describe
ethnic Jewish identities outside of the predominant Ashkenazic popula-
tions in Latin America. The best example of this is taking place in Mexico.
There are some cases of literature by Sephardic authors, such as Marcos
Ricardo Barnatán in Argentina and of course the highly popular texts of
Rosa Nissán in Mexico, whose two-novel series Novia que te vea and Hisho
que te Nazca – published jointly in one volume as Like a Bride and Like
a Mother in English translation – launched her into a successful career as an
author who came to writing later in life after completing a writing work-
shop with famous Mexican author Elena Poniatowska. Nissan’s were the
first contemporary texts to include significant portions of the dialogue in
Djudeo-espanyol.39 Author Angelina Muñiz-Huberman has long written
about the Sephardic past in such novels as El mercader de Tudela (The
merchant of Tudela), based on the real-life sojourns of medieval Jewish
explorer and merchant Benjamin de Tudela (1130–1173), El sefardí
romántico: la azarosa vida de Mateo Alemán II (The romantic Sephardi:
The ill-fated life of Mateo Alemán II), and most recently in her novel about
swashbuckling Jewish pirates on the high seas, Los esperandos: Piratas
judeoportugueses . . . y yo (The Esperandos: Judeoportuguese pirates . . . and
me).40 Myriam Moscona, also a Sephardic author from Mexico, began her
career as a poet and gained considerable acclaim in that genre. Her poetry
contained scattered words in Djudeo-espanyol, but it was not until the
publication of her first novel, Tela de sevoya (Onioncloth), that she began to
explore in depth her Sephardic roots and incorporate Djudeo-espanyol as
an integral linguistic component of the text. The novel, whose title means
“onion skin,” has been translated into English with the original title.
Curiously, the English translation preserves all of the Djudeo-espanyol
passages with accompanying English translation. The autobiographical
novel, structured in alternating segments, tells the story of her journey to
Bulgaria to explore her family history and roots. After the publication of
Tela de sevoya, Moscona returned to poetry but increased her reliance on
Djudeo-espanyol as the language of literary creation in the book Ansina
(Like this).41 The entire volume is written exclusively in Djudeo-espanyol
without translations into contemporary Spanish, though it does provide
a glossary of terms that the Spanish reader may not be able to understand
since they are borrowed words from Bulgarian, Turkish, and other lan-
guages of the Sephardic diaspora. The result is a highly evocative and
linguistically performative volume of poetry. Of note is another book of
poetry written in Djudeo-espanyol by the renowned Argentine Ashkenazi
poet Juan Gelman, whose work evokes not only the Jewish past but the
Jewish-Hispanic past. Two other examples of non-Ashkenazic literature
from Mexico come from the well-established Shami community of Mexico
City. Jacobo Sefami’s autobiographical evocation of his father is told in his
first novel, Los dolientes (Mourning for Papa), while Ivonne Saed also
explores family roots and traditions in her novel Triple crónica de un
nombre (Triple chronicle of a name).42
The most innovative new direction that Jewish authors in Latin America
are taking is in the area of gender and sexuality. Historically taboo subjects,
younger writers are confronting patriarchal Jewish tradition head-on and
forging new ground with openly queer texts. There is precedent in the
twentieth century for such topics as homosexuality being addressed in
literary texts. The earliest such example is the 1970 essay by the preeminent
Jewish-Brazilian author Samuel Rawet titled “Homossexualismo: sexuali-
dade e valor” (Homosexuality: sexuality and valor),43 in which he advocates
for a more open and accepting attitude toward sexuality in general and
homosexuality as an option within the range of human erotic experience.
Venezuelan author Isaac Chocrón, of Sephardic-Moroccan origin, was
very likely the first openly gay Jewish writer in Latin America. His ground-
breaking texts, like the novels Pájaro de mar por tierra (Landlocked sea
bird), and the epistolary autobiographical Rómpase en caso de incendio
(Break glass in case of fire), were among the first gay novels in Latin
America. Known equally well as a novelist and a playwright, Chocron’s
1993 play Escrito y sellado (Written and sealed) is an emotional evocation of
and homage to a lover who perished from AIDS.44 The Brazilian writer
Alberto Guzik is the only other author to write openly about the destruc-
tive force of AIDS in the life of the gay Jewish protagonist in his novel Risco
de vida (Risk of life).45 Finally, Mexican author Sara Levi Calderón
(pseudonym, Sylvia Feldman) has the distinction of publishing the first
Jewish lesbian novel in Latin America Dos mujeres (The Two Mujeres),
which was also the second lesbian novel published in Mexico (following on
the heels of Rosamaría Roffiel’s Amora (1989).46
Jewish authors have a history of publishing sexually provocative texts in
Latin America. One thinks, for example, of Teresa Porzecanski’s novel Una
novela erotica (An erotic novel), Alicia Steimberg’s Amatista, or Antonio
Elio Brailovsky’s Me gustan sus áuernos (I like your horns).47 The last two
were published in the famous erotic literature series La Sonrisa Vertical
(The vertical smile) by the Spanish publishing house Tusquets.
These twentieth-century forebears set the stage for the development of
gay/lesbian/queer Jewish Literature that emerges in the twenty-first century.
Jewish authors continue the tradition of publishing in the La Sonrisa Vertical
series. Marcelo Birmajer published the collection of stories Eso no (Not that)
with Tusquets in 2003.48 The “not that” of the title refers to anal sex.
The book contains six short stories that fall into the popular genres of
detective fiction, science fiction, romance literature, horror fiction, spy
novels, and fairy tales. Each revolves around the taboo subject of anal sex,
whether between men and men, men and women, or humans and aliens.
Jewish-Latin American literature’s second lesbian novel, Duas iguais (Two of
the same) by Brazilian author Cíntia Moscovich, was published in Spanish as
Dos iguales (2007) in the Tusquests series.49 It took Sara Levi Calderón 25
years to publish the follow-up to Dos mujeres, but it finally appeared in the
tell-all autobiographical narrative Vida y peripecias de una buena hija de
familia (The life and travails of a good family daughter).50
Brazilian Rafael Bán Jacobsen’s novel Uma leve simetria is a coming-of-
age gay love story between two Jewish adolescents within the heart of the
tight-knit Jewish community of what is understood to be the Bom Fim
neighborhood of Porto Alegre, made famous in the fiction of Moacyr
Scliar. The element of symmetry is revealed in the way in which Jacobsen
interweaves the story of Daniel and Pedro with biblical narrative. At the
core of the novel is the matter of the Law, and the attempt to reconcile
a religiously Jewish life as a gay man. This is ultimately Daniel’s struggle.
The novel opens with the well-known passage from Leviticus 18:22 (written
in Hebrew text, which imbues it with even more weight and authority) that
is the basis for proscribing same-sex (male/male) relations. The entire
novel, then, is a search for coming to terms with what one accepts as the
Law, and what one knows, and moreover accepts, to be his sexual identity.
This is achieved by the author in two ways. First, the novel is structured in
a series of chapters that instead of numbers have letters of the Hebrew
alphabet – from alef to tav – each accompanied by a verse from Psalms 119,
all of which have to do with invoking God’s help in keeping the
Law. Second, Jacobsen offers a thorough retelling of the story of David
and Jonathan (narrated in 1 Samuel), which runs parallel to the story of
Daniel and Pedro in alternating sections of each chapter. Herein lies the
true symmetry of desire in the novel. The story of David and Jonathan is
also one of an intimate friendship that runs afoul of Kind Saul, Jonathan’s
father, and ends in tragedy. David’s heart-wrenching lament over the death
of Jonathan (symmetrical to Daniel’s for Pedro) at the end of the novel
stands as a counterdiscourse to the verse from Leviticus at the start.51
Birmajer has written several other stories that push the boundaries and
intersections between sexual identity and Jewish identity. His short story
“La última familia feliz” (“The Last Happy Family”) reveals the last
descendants of Sodom and Gomorrah living in hiding in Buenos Aires as
they engage in incest and sodomy in an effort to keep the family line from
dying out. “En la noche de bodas” (The wedding night) was first pub-
lished in an anthology of Argentine gay literature. It is a clever recreation of
the era of the agricultural colonies with the exception that the wedding
night is shared by two men, Roni and Efraím. Birmajer’s portrayal of
homoeroticism in the story is direct and ultimately positive. In yet another
story, “Una decisión al respecto” (A decision on the matter),52 he intro-
duces the theme of gender reassignment surgery by a husband and father
who leaves his wife and son to undergo gender reassignment and marry
a man. Though told with a great deal of humor, the very real emotional toll
on all involved is cleverly portrayed, namely when the son decides to
become a dog. Gender reassignment is also the central axis in Diana
Raznovich’s comedic play De atrás para adelante (Rear Entry)53 in which
gender performance takes center-stage. The prodigal son Javier Goldberg
must return home to save the family business (a toilet paper factory) and
his father, Simón Goldberg, who had disowned him. Things are compli-
cated by the fact that Javier returns as Dolly Goldberg, who left home to
undergo gender reassignment surgery and is now married to her former
psychoanalyst, and together they have three daughters. Angelina Muñiz-
Huberman also incorporates many aspects of gender ambiguity into much
of her work. The previously mentioned El mercader de Tudela is fraught
with homoerotic undertones. Her novel La burladora de Toledo (The
seductress of Toledo)54 is based on the sixteenth-century historical figure
of Elena de Céspedes, who is sometimes described as a transsexual and at
others as a hermaphrodite; Elena passed as both a man and a woman
throughout her life and was trained in medicine with close ties to Jewish
communities. Sexual/gender ambiguity is at the core of the text as Elena/o
transitions in and out of gender roles throughout the novel. This same
character appears again in Los esperandos.
A final new development in Jewish-Latin American literature has to do
with the appearance of the Jewish detective/crime novel. While several
Jewish authors in Argentina have made significant contributions to
science fiction – such as Daniel Gutman, Ana María Shua, and Carlos
Chernov – it is only within the past several years that Jewish-centered
detective and crime novels have begun to appear. Ricardo Feierstein is
one of Argentina’s most prolific Jewish authors, who has produced many
volumes of poetry, short stories, novels, and essays that focus on
Jewishness. It is his two volumes of detective stories that are of interest
here: Homicidios tímidos: los casos policiales del inspector Leppe (Timid
homicides: The police cases of Inspector Leppe) and El caso de concurso
literario: historias policiales del inspector Leppe (The case of the literary
contest: Detective stories of Inspector Leppe).55 The stories that feature
Inspector Leppe are narrated by a character named Leonel Stopper.
Feierstein’s tales are fashioned around the traditional locked-room
model of classic detective fiction. Isaac Goldemberg returned to the
novel with his work of detective fiction titled Acuérdate del escorpión
(Remember the Scorpion),56 which takes place in Lima in 1970 following
a major earthquake. Peruvian detective Simón Weiss, together with his
partner Katón Kanashiro, are called upon to solve the brutal murders of
a young Japanese immigrant and an elderly Jewish man. The novel
connects Peruvian social criticism with the protagonist’s own troubled
past as a child survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.
The Argentine authors Alejandro Soifer and María Inés Krímer take the
crime novel to new heights in their texts. Soifer thus far has penned two
extensive novels, Rituales de sangre (Blood rituals) and its sequel Rituales de
lágimas (Tear rituals).57 The first takes place in the heart of Once (the
traditionally Jewish neighborhood of Buenos Aires) among Orthodox
Jews. When a respected rabbi murders his family and then takes his own
life the community is shaken to its core. Three individuals – the daughter
of a rabbi, a teacher, and an ex-cop – are drawn together to solve the
mystery. The sequel takes place two years later, when the three are pulled
once again into another series of ritualistic murders. The novels are
suspenseful thrillers at their best, and unique in that the vicious crimes
take place among an otherwise violence-free community. The final trilogy
of novels, by María Inés Krímer, introduces the intrepid Jewish female
detective Ruth Epelbaum as she solves crimes in the hard-boiled novels
Sangre kosher (Kosher blood), Siliconas express (Silicone implants express),
and Sangre fashion (Haute couture blood).58 In Epelbaum, Krímer has
created not only one of a very few female detectives, but the first and only
Jewish female detective in Latin American literature. Her novels are
written in the best style of the Argentine novela negra (hard-boiled novel)
and have earned much deserved critical acclaim.
There are other avenues to be explored in twenty-first-century Jewish
writing, such as an increase of interest in Jewish mysticism in literature,
Jewish-Latin American literature in translation, and the rather broad
spectrum of literary texts being written by Jewish-Latin Americans living
in the United States, but space constraints leave those endeavors for
a future occasion. It is clear that Jewish Literature throughout Latin
America is gaining prominence as a body of writing that not only continues
to challenge dominant literary discourse, but is also turning a critical eye
inward to challenge many perceptions of how Jewish-Latin Americans see
themselves and the roles they play within the diverse countries of Latin
America.
Notes
1. Saul Sosnowksi, “Latin American-Jewish Writers: Protecting the Hyphen,” in
J. Laiken Elkin and G. W. Merkx, eds. The Jewish Presence in Latin America
(Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1987), p. 299.
2. Darrell B. Lockhart, Jewish Writers of Latin America: A Dictionary (New York:
Garland, 1997), pp. xi–xii.
3. Darrell B. Lockhart, Critical Approaches to Jewish-Mexican Literature /
Aproximaciones críticas a la literatura judeomexicana (Tempe: Chasqui, 2013),
p. 10.
4. Avni, et al. “Introduction,” in Pertenencia y alteridad: Judíos en/de América
Latina: cuarenta años de cambios (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2011).
5. Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein, “New Approaches to Ethnicity and Diaspora
in Twentieth-Century Latin America,” in Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans
(Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), p. 24.
6. Jorge Isaacs, María (Bogotá: Imprenta Gaitán, 1867); Doris Sommer,
“María’s Disease: A National Romance (Con)founded,” in Foundational
Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 1991), pp. 172–203; and “ Jorge Isaacs.” in D. B. Lockhart,
ed. Jewish Writers of Latin America: A Dictionary (New York: Garland, 1997),
pp. 268–74.
7. Ana E. Weinstein and Eliahu Toker, La letra ídish en tierra argentina: Bio-
bibliografía de sus autores literarios (Buenos Aires: Milá, 2004).
8. Mordejai Alpersohn, Der Lindzshero (Buenos Aires: Kaplansky, 1937),
Spanish trans. El linyera. Trans. Ethel Gater (Buenos Aires: Sholem Buenos
Aires, 2012).
9. Dray Vegn (México, D.F.: Yungt, 1927), Spanish trans. Tres caminos: el germen
de la literatura judía en México (México, DF: El Tucán de Virginia, 1977);
Alan Astro, ed., Yiddish South of the Border: An Anthology of Latin American
Yiddish Writing (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2003).
10. José Rabinovich, Tercera clase (Buenos Aires: Sophos, 1944).
11. Alberto Gerchunoff, Los gauchos judíos (Buenos Aires: J. Sesé, 1910), English
trans. The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas. Trans. Prudencio de Pereda
(New York. Abelard-Shulman, 1955).
12. Edna Aizenberg, “Good-bye Jewish Gaucho: Alberto Gerchunoff, Anti-
Nazi,” in On the Edge of the Holocaust: The Shoah in Latin American Literature
and Culture (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2016), pp. 53–80.
13. Rebeca Mactas, Los judíos de Las Acacias (Buenos Aires: n.p., 1936).
14. Samuel Eichelbaum, El judío Aarón (Buenos Aires: Talía, 1926), English trans.
Aaron the Jew, in Nora Glickman and Gloria F. Waldman, eds. Argentine
Jewish Theatre: A Critical Anthology (Lewisburg, WV: Bucknell University
Press, 1996), pp. 19–54.
15. Alejandro Dujovne, Una historia del libro judío: la cultura judía argentina
a través de sus editors, libreros, traductores, imprentas y bibliotecas (Buenos Aires:
Siglo Veintiuno, 2014).
16. Enrique Espinoza, La levita gris: cuentos judíos de ambiente porteño (Buenos
Aires: Babel, 1924).
17. Carlos M Grünberg, Mester de judería (Buenos Aires: Argirópolis, 1940) and
Junto a un río de Babel (Buenos Aires: Acervo Cultural, 1964).
18. César Tiempo, Versos de una . . . (Buenos Aires: Claridad, 1926).
19. Nora Glickman, Una tal Raquel, in Cuatro obras de Nora Glickman (Buenos
Aires: Nueva Generación, 2000), pp. 19–60; Myrtha Schalom, La polaca
(Buenos Aires: Norma, 2003).
20. Edgardo Cozarinsky, El rufián moldavo (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 2004), English
trans. The Moldavian Pimp (London: Random House UK, 2006);
Elsa Drucaroff, El infierno prometido: Una prostituta de la Zwi Migdal
(Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2006); Moacyr Scliar, O ciclo das águas
(Porto Alegre: Globo, 1976); Esther Largman, Jovens polacas (Rio de Janeiro:
Rosa dos Tempos, 1993).
21. Alicia Steimberg, Músicos y relojeros (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América
Latina, 1971), English trans. Musicians and Watchmakers. Trans. Andrea
G. Labinger (Pittsburgh, PA: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1998)
and Cuando digo Magdalena (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1992), English trans. Call
me Magdalena. Trans. Andrea G. Labinger (Lincoln, NE: University of
Nebraska Press, 1992).
22. Ana María Shua, El libro de los reuerdos (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1994),
English trans. The Book of Memories. Trans. D. Gerdes (Albuquerque, NM:
University of New Mexico Press, 1998); Manuela Fingueret, Blues de la calle
Leiva (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1995); Teresa Porzecanski, Perfumes de Cartago
(Montevideo, Trilce, 1994); Margo Glantz, Las genealogías (México, DF:
Martín Casillas, 1981), English trans. The Family Tree. Trans. S. Bassnett
(London: Serpent’s Tail, 1991); Sabina Berman, La bobe (México, DF:
Planeta, 1991), English translation, La Bobe. Trans. Andrea G. Labinger
(Pittsburgh, PA: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1998); Rosa Nissán,
Novia que te vea (México, DF: Planeta, 1992).
23. Clarice Lispector, A hora da estrela (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1977),
English trans. The Hour of the Star. Trans. G. Pontiero (Manchester:
Carcanet, 1986).
24. Lockhart, Critical Approaches; Rodrigo Cánovas, Literatura de inmigrantes
árabes y judíos en Chile y México (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2011).
25. Gerardo Mario Goloboff, Criador de palomas (Buenos Aires: Bruguera, 1984),
Luna que cae (Barcelona: Muchnik, 1989), El Soñador de Smith (Barcelona:
Muchnik, 1990), Comuna Verdad (Barcelona: Muchnik, 1995), English trans.
The Algarrobos Cuartet. Trans. S. Sadow (Albuquerque, NM: University of
New Mexico Press, 2002).
26. Perla Suez, Letargo (Buenos Aires: Norma, 2000), El arresto (Buenos Aires:
Norma, 2001), Complot (Buenos Aires: Norma, 2004), English trans.
The Entre Ríos Trilogy. Trans. R. Dahl Buchanan (Albuquerque, NM:
University of New Mexico Press, 2006). Isaac Goldemberg, La vida a plazos
de don Jacobo Lerner (Lima: Libre 1, 1978), English trans. The Fragmented Life
of Don Jacobo Lerner. Trans. R. S. Picciotto (New York: Persea, 1976), Tiempo
al tiempo (Hanover: Ediciones del Norte, 1984), English trans. Play by Play.
Trans. H. St. Martin (New York: Persea, 1984).
27. Pedro Orgambide, Aventuras de Edmund Ziller en tierras del Nuevo Mundo
(México, DF: Grijalbo, 1977); Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, Tierra adentro
(México, DF: Joaquín Mortiz, 1977), English trans. A Mystical Journey. Trans.
S. Menton (Santa Fe: Gaon Books, 2011); Moacyr Scliar, A estranha nação de
Rafael Mendes (Porto Alegre: L&PM Editores, 1983), English trans.
The Strange Nation of Rafael Mendes. Trans., E. F. Giacomelli (New York:
Ballantine, 1987); Marcos Aguinis, La gesta del marrano (Buenos Aires:
Planeta, 1991); Alicia Freilich Segal, Colombina descubierta (Caracas:
Planeta, 1991); Ricardo Halac, Mil años, un día (Buenos Aires: Corregidor,
1993), English trans. A Thousand Years, One Day. In Nora Glickman and
Gloria F. Waldman, eds. Argentine Jewish Theatre: A Critical Anthology
(Lewisburg, WV: Bucknell University Press, 1996), pp. 196–262.
28. Simja Sneh, Na Ve’Nad (Buenos Aires: Undzervort, 1952), El pan y la sangre
(Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,1977), Sin rumbo. 6 vols (Buenos Aires: Milá,
1993–97), Sin rumbo (Na Ve’Nad): Antología (Buenos Aires: Biblioteca
Nacional, 2015).
29. Ana de Vinocur, Un libro sin título (Montevideo: Juventa, 1972), Luces
y sombras después de Auschwitz (México, DF: Diana, 1971).
30. José Rabinovich, El perro de Maidanek (Buenos Aires: Platense, 1986);
Sonia Guralnik, Relatos en sepia (Santiago: Ergo Sum, 1987);
Jaime Laventman, El espectro: cuentos (México, DF: Porrúa, 1983).
31. Michel Laub, Diário da queda (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2011),
English trans. Diary of the Fall. Trans. M. J. Costa (New York: Other Press,
2014); Noemi Jaffe, O que os cegos estão sonhando? (São Paulo: Editora 34,
2012); Marco Schwartz, El salmo de Kaplan (Bogotá: Norma, 2005).
32. Jacobo Timerman, Preso sin nombre, celda sin número (Buenos Aires: El Cid,
1981), English trans. Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number. Trans.
Toby Talbot (New York: Knopf, 1981).
33. Manuela Fingueret, Hija del silencio (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1999), English trans.
Daughter of Silence. Trans. Darrell B. Lockhart (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech
University Press, 2012); Mauricio Rosencof, Las cartas que no llegaron
(Montevideo: Santillana, 2000), English trans. (2004) The Letters that Never
Came. Trans. Louis Popkin (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico
Press, 2004).
34. Susana Gertopan, El retorno de Eva (Asunción: Arandurã, 2003), 2005. Barrio
Palestina (Asunción: Litocolor, 2005), El nombre prestado (Asunción:
Litocolor, 2005).
35. Ariel. Bibliowicz, El rumor del astracán. Bogotá: Planeta.; 2002. Sobre la faz del
abismo (Bogotá: Norma, 1991).
36. Leandro Sarmatz, Mães e sogras (Porto Alegre: Instituto Estadual do Livro,
2000), Logocausto (São Paulo: Editora da Casa, 2001).
37. Tatiana Salem Levy, A chave de casa (São Paulo: Editora Record, 2007);
Flávio Izhaki, Amanhã não tem ninguem (Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2013);
Julián Fuks, A resistência (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015); Rafael
Ban Jacobsen, Uma leve simetria (Porto Alegre: Não Editora, 2009).
38. Eliah Germani, Volver a Berlín (Santiago: RIL Editores, 2010), and Objetos
personales (Santiago: RIL Editores, 2015); Diego Paszkowski, Rosen (Buenos
Aires: Sudamericana, 2013).
39. Nissán, Novia que te vea, Hisho que te Nazca (México, DF: Plaza y Janés,
1996), English trans. Like a Bride. Like a Mother. Trans. Dick Gerdes
(Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2002).
40. Muñiz-Huberman, El mercader de Tudela (México, DF: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 1998), El sefardí romántico: La vida azarosa de Mateo Alemán II
(México, DF: Plaza y Janés, 2005), Los esperandos: Piratas judeoportugueses . . .
y yo (Madrid: Sefarad Editores, 2017).
41. Myriam Moscona, Tela de sevoya (México, DF: Lumen, 2012), English trans.
Tela de sevoya / Onioncloth. Trans. Jen Hoffer with John Pluecker (Los
Angeles: Les Figues Press, 2017), Ansina (México, DF: Vaso Roto, 2015).
42. Jacobo Sefamí, Los dolientes (México, DF: Plaza y Janés, 2004), English trans.
Mourning for Papa. Trans. K. García (Mountain View: Floricanto, 2010);
Ivonne Saed, Triple crónica de un nombre (México, DF: Lectorum, 2003).
43. Samuel Rawet, “Homossexualismo: sexualidade e valor,” in Samuel Rawet:
Ensaios reunidos (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasleira, 2008), pp. 23–49.
44. Isaac Chocrón, Pájaro de mar por tierra (Caracas: Tiempo Nuevo, 1972),
Rómpase en caso de incendio. Caracas: Monte Avila, 1975), Escrito y sellado
(Caracas: Ex Libris, 1993).
45. Alberto Guzik, Risco de vida (São Paulo: Editora Globo, 1995).
46. Sara Levi Calderón, Dos mujeres (México, DF: Diana, 1990), English trans.
The Two Mujeres. Trans. Gina Kaufer (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books,
1991).
47. Teresa Porzecanski, Una novela erótica (Montevideo: Margen, 1989);
Steimberg, Amatista (Barcelona: Tusquets, 1989); Antonio Elio Brailovksy,
Me gustan sus cuernos (Barcelona: Tusquets, 1995).
48. Marcelo Birmajer, Eso no (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2003).
49. Cíntia Moscovich, Duas iguais (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2004),
Spanish trans. Dos iguales. Trans. L. G. Berlanga (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2007).
50. Levi Calderón, Vida y peripecias de una buena hija de familia (México, DF:
Voces en Tinta, 2015).
51. Jacobsen, Uma leve simetria, p. 189.
52. Birmajer, “La última familia feliz,” in El fuego más alto (Buenos Aires: Norma,
1977), pp. 13–56, English trans. “The Last Happy Family.” Trans. Darrell
B. Lockhart. In J. Gibian, ed., Argentina: A Traveler’s Literary Companion
(Berkeley: Whereabouts Press, 2010), pp. 124–66, “ Una decisión al respecto,”
in Historias de hombres casados (Buenos Aires: Alfaguara (1999), pp. 221–38, “En
la noche de bodas,” in L. Brizuela, ed. Historia de un deseo: El erotismo homosexual
en 28 relatos argentinos contemporáneos (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 2000), pp. 70–79.
53. Diana Raznovich, De atrás para adelante. In D. Taylor and V Martínez, eds.
Defiant Acts: Four Plays by Diana Raznovich / Actos desafiantes: Cuatro obras de
Diana Raznovich (Lewisburg, WV: Bucknell University Press, 2002), pp.
287–342. English trans. Rear Entry, pp. 129–85.
54. Muñiz-Huberman, La burladora de Toledo (México: DF: Planeta, 2008).
55. Ricardo Feierstein, Homicidios tímidos: Los casos policiales del inspector Leppe
(Buenos Aires: Galerna, 1996), El caso del concurso literario: Historias policiales
del inspector Leppe (Buenos Aires: Acervo Cultural, 2013).
56. Goldemberg, Acuérdate del escorpión (Madrid: Sefarad Editores, 2017),
English trans. Remember the Scorpion. Trans. J. Tittler (Los Angeles:
The Unnamed Press, 2015).
57. Alejandro Soifer, Rituales de sangre (Buenos Aires: Aguilar, Altea, Taurus,
Alfaguara, 2014), Rituales de lágrimas (Buenos Aires: Aguilar, Altea, Taurus,
Alfaguara, 2015).
58. María Inés Krimer, Sangre kosher (Buenos Aires: Aquilina, 2010), Siliconas
express (Buenos Aires: Aquilina, 2013), Sangre fashion (Buenos Aires: Aquilina,
2015).

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chapter 15

Jewish-Latin American Literature

Jewish-Latin American literary studies has burgeoned into a ﬂourishing

New Directions for the Twenty-First Century

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