Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild

Daniel Kennedy

INTRODUCTION


The free-spir­it­ed, 19-year old Tsilke has spent her whole life in the for­est, but what hap­pens when the out­side world, with its strange rules and social oblig­a­tions, begins to encroach on her syl­van idyll? Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el Di vilde tsilke cement­ed his posi­tion as one of the most pop­u­lar Yid­dish writ­ers of the inter­war peri­od. The nov­el that scan­dal­ized and enter­tained a gen­er­a­tion of Pol­ish-Jew­ish read­ers, and left its mark on the pop­u­lar imag­i­na­tion, is now avail­able in Eng­lish for the first time.

Nature!—Evoca­tive, at times, lyri­cal descrip­tions of the Belaru­sian wood­lands. ☜

Love tri­an­gle!—will our hero­ine end up with the charm­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed Sasha from the big city? Or does she have a soft spot for provin­cial ladies-man Froyke who — rumor has it — has already kissed all the girls in Mis­te­bove? ☜

Sus­pense!18 instal­ments, pub­lished twice a week over the next nine weeks. ☜

But there’s one corner of the forest where life is a little different . . .

בלױז אין אײן װינקל פֿון װאַלד גײט דאָס לעבן אַ ביסל אַנדערש . . .

Di vilde tsilke, Zusman Segalovitsh

The first 6 instalments will be presented bilingually in Yiddish and English. Those wishing to read further in Yiddish are invited to use the following resources.

Original Yiddish version

Courtesy of the Yiddish Book Center

Di vilde tsilke (Warsaw: Farlag A. Gitlin, 1922)

Di vilde tsilke (Warsaw: Farlag Kh. Bzhoza, 1928)

Audiobook (Yiddish) read by Cecylia Serlin


Polish translation (trans. Paulina Appenszlak)

Cylka z Lasu, (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Safrus, 1929)

Courtesy of rcin.org.pl

MLA STYLE
Kennedy, Daniel. “Tsilke the Wild.” In geveb, January 2021: https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/tsilkeintro.
CHICAGO STYLE
Kennedy, Daniel. “Tsilke the Wild.” In geveb (January 2021): Accessed Mar 19, 2024.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Kennedy

Daniel Kennedy is a translator based in France.