Sutzkever's Forgotten Chronicle of the Vilna Ghetto
Sun, Nov 21
|Live via Zoom
Justin Cammy discusses the prose works of poet and partisan Avrom Sutzkever – from his memoirs of the Vilna Ghetto and testimony at the Nuremberg Trials to memoirs of his years in Soviet Russia: a lifetime of prose works collected in his newly published volume of translations.
Time & Location
Nov 21, 2021, 2:00 PM
Live via Zoom
About the Event
In his lifetime, the great Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever published only a single non-fiction prose volume - an account of the Vilna Ghetto. He never sought its republication after it initially appeared in 1946, and it did not figure prominently in his subsequent critical reception. Now, for the first time, his chronicle of the ghetto is available to English readers in a volume that also includes the poet's testimony at Nuremberg, his diary notes from that testimony, and three reminiscences of his Moscow years (1944-1946). Our conversation will explore the the differences between Sutzkever's prose chronicle and poetry of his ghetto years and the political context of its composition in the Soviet Union.
Justin Cammy is professor of Jewish Studies and World Literatures at Smith College. He is editor and translator of A. Sutzkever, From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony (McGill-Queen's UP, Fall 2021).