“Perhaps there is no more exciting contemporary author… none more capable of combining the novelistic with the poetic element, of uniting the vibrant and vivid realism with the sparkling powers of metaphor and simile.” – James Wood, The New Republic
“A work written with passion, a combative response… Everything captures Roth’s interest and curiosity, and his acumen, his ability to discern the vibrant, striking details is one of his key literary weapons… The Wandering Jews is the only one of his journalistic texts and one of the few literary works that draws so much from his personal memories and experiences, touching upon so many themes central to his tormented conscience. And the publication of the book in English, translated by Michael Hofmann, provides the ideal introduction to Roth’s non-literary work.” – Michael Andre Bernstein, The New Republic
ONE OF THE GREATEST NOVELISTS of the 20th century (The Radetzky March, The Capuchin Crypt), Joseph Roth (1894-1939) wrote the haunting “dispatches” of this book during the interwar period. The Wandering Jews draw attention to the false benefits of Jewish adaptation, reveal the schism between Eastern Jews and Western Jews, analyze the complexity of Jewish identity, and cast a worried eye on the future of Germany. Roth combines in his writing a restrained, thorough perspective with the vibrancy and urgency of the moment, prompting comparisons and parables with the work of Thomas Mann and Isaac Babel. The Wandering Jews offer a unique insight into the European Jewish experience at a critical juncture in world history.
Joseph Roth particularly cherished this essay, the poetic and luminous inventory of a universe that the author knew was threatened, that of the Jewish settlements of Central and Eastern Europe. The Wandering Jews analyze the reasons for its slow disintegration: the poverty that drives the residents of the shtetls to leave, the temptation of assimilation in the western world. As a true transmitter of culture, the assimilated Jew Roth casts a kindly glance at those Jews with the strange idiom, dressed in kaftans, whom we once encountered in certain neighborhoods of Vienna, Berlin, or Paris.
“The Wandering Jews is the outstanding work of a truly extraordinary writer. Reading it is enough for the reader to assume the role of the messenger.” – Elie Wiesel
“The entirety of Joseph Roth’s work is a true tragédie humaine, written in the ways of modern literature. No other writer, not even Thomas Mann, has achieved what Lukács calls… our unattainable goal.” – Nadine Gordimer
“Every page of Joseph Roth is a poem.” – Joseph Brodsky
“The Wandering Jews perceive and capture Europe at those uncertain hours before the collapse of a continent and the destruction of a civilization.” – Cynthia Ozick
“Roth’s talent… is essential; and of a kind much rarer now than it was fifty years ago.” – The New Yorker
“Joseph Roth is one of the greatest German writers of the 20th century.” – The Times (London)
