Kirjahaku

Pogroms and the Holocaust, xenophobia and the Bush War provide the backdrop for Illuminating Love. The novel entwines the journeys of two Jewish women, Judith, an immigrant to South Africa, forced to leave her home and family in Eastern Europe before World War II, and Cally her granddaughter living in contemporary South Africa. While rendering Judith's poems in calligraphy, Cally uncovers her family's history and roots in the shtetls of Lithuania and she memorialises this past. Judith's love poems also serve as a counterpoint for Cally's own circumstances. Trapped in a cycle of abuse, she also inscribes a Ketuba, the Jewish marriage contract for Aaron and Shira, as well as a love sampler for her husband Jake in order to win him back.

Set in Lithuania and South Africa, the Yiddish poetry of David Fram (1903-1988) memorialises an almost-obliterated Jewish culture in the old country and its surviving offshoots in the new. Frankel's study of the most important South African Yiddish poet foregrounds insightful close analysis of his poetry, situating it in a variety of cultural-historical contexts, which include immigration and exile, memory and postmemory, and the Holocaust. A representative sample of Fram's work is presented, in transliteration and also translation, as an Appendix.By considering Fram side-by-side with other South African Yiddish poets, as well as such well-known figures as the poet Abraham Sutzkever and the artist Marc Chagall, Frankel convincingly argues for Fram's relevance in transnational modern Jewish culture. Hazel Frankel is a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research encompasses aspects of Yiddish literature, and interactions between poetry and painting, focusing on issues of memory and postmemory, migration and exile, and the Holocaust. Her own writing includes a volume of poetry, Drawing from Memory, and two novels.

Set in Lithuania and South Africa, the Yiddish poetry of David Fram (1903-1988) memorialises an almost-obliterated Jewish culture in the old country and its surviving offshoots in the new. Frankel's study of the most important South African Yiddish poet foregrounds insightful close analysis of his poetry, situating it in a variety of cultural-historical contexts, which include immigration and exile, memory and postmemory, and the Holocaust. A representative sample of Fram's work is presented, in transliteration and also translation, as an Appendix.By considering Fram side-by-side with other South African Yiddish poets, as well as such well-known figures as the poet Abraham Sutzkever and the artist Marc Chagall, Frankel convincingly argues for Fram's relevance in transnational modern Jewish culture.Hazel Frankel is a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research encompasses aspects of Yiddish literature, and interactions between poetry and painting, focusing on issues of memory and postmemory, migration and exile, and the Holocaust. Her own writing includes a volume of poetry, Drawing from Memory, and two novels.