Joshua Cohen

Joshua Cohen is the author, most recently, of Witz. A collection of novellas, Four New Messages, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2012.

Martyrologies

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish created a poetry of martyrdom for his people—and a political coup for the idea of the nakba

Yizkor, Book

On Yom Kippur, a day of remembrance, offering a blessing for the life and death of books

War Poet

In new translations of his poems about soldiers, disappearance, and life cycles, Israeli poet Yitzhak Laor uses biblical allusions, humor, and rage to explore the absurdities of modern Israeli life

Moving Pictures

A new translation of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago unlocks the novel’s cinematic qualities

Clockwork

The Sabbath is but one of the Jewish contributions to the science of keeping time

Flying High

The novella ‘Union Jack’ offers Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész in top form

Repurposed

Heimrad Bäcker’s ‘documentary poems’ turn artifacts of evil into the stuff of art

Experimental Fiction

In a 1931 novel, Ernst Weiss integrated medicine and literature

Writing on the Wall

An anthology highlights the divide between sanctioned and forbidden literature

Word Play

What the French novelist Georges Perec owed to the kabbalistic tradition