Blog

Yiddish, Translation, and a World Literature To-Come

Saul Noam Zaritt

What does it mean for Yiddish writers to write for the world? What are the consequences of translating Yiddish literature for the institutions and anthologies of something called “world literature”? What is gained and what is lost in the exchange? And what might it mean to refuse translation altogether but still project a worldly horizon for writing in Yiddish? In this talk from November 2016, Saul Noam Zaritt, assistant professor of Yiddish Literature at Harvard, takes on these questions by considering the opposing figures of Sholem Asch and Jacob Glatstein. Zaritt examines the possibility of looking beyond untranslatability to imagine the potential for a world literature to-come.

You can read Zaritt’s translation of Glatstein’s essay “The March to the Goyim” discussed in the talk. And see Zaritt’s article published in Studies in American Jewish Literature, “ ‘The World Awaits Your Yiddish Word’: Jacob Glatstein and the Problem of World Literature.”

Saul Noam Zaritt | Jacob Pat Memo­r­i­al Lec­ture | Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty
Novem­ber 162016

Co-sponsored by the Judaica Division of the Harvard College Library and the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University.

A project of The Jacob and Frieda Pat Endowment in the Harvard College Library and the Abraham and Rachel Bornstein Fund in the Center for Jewish Studies

MLA STYLE
Zaritt, Saul Noam. “Yiddish, Translation, and a World Literature To-Come.” In geveb, January 2017: https://ingeveb.org/blog/yiddish-translation-and-a-world-literature-to-come.
CHICAGO STYLE
Zaritt, Saul Noam. “Yiddish, Translation, and a World Literature To-Come.” In geveb (January 2017): Accessed Mar 19, 2024.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Saul Noam Zaritt

Saul Noam Zaritt is an associate professor of Yiddish Literature at Harvard University. He is currently a peer review editor at In geveb and one of the site's founding editors.