King David's Harp : Autobiographical Essays by Jewish Latin American Writers Book

In this collection of fifteen essays, Jewish Latin American writers speak for themselves about their lives, their literary work, their formative experiences, and the Jewish communities in Latin America and the United States. Included are writers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela, about half of whom live outside their country of origin. With the exception of Alberto Gerchunoff, arguably the father of Jewish Latin American writing, all the writers are living and writing actively.

King David's Harp is unified by a constant sense of motion. Jos' Kozer and Ilan Stavans, for example, give the impression of being in perpetual motion. Many, including Ariel Dorfman and Alcina Lubitch Domecq, have changed countries, languages, political systems; others, like Ricardo Feierstein and Margo Glantz remain in their country of birth. Most are multilingual. Some, Marjorie Agosin and Alberto Gerchunoff, for example spoke Yiddish as their first language, only to become deeply attached to Spanish later on, or Portuguese, in the case of Moacyr Scliar. All these complex individuals move back and forth among different worlds, in circumstances that could be seen as restrictive, frustrating, and unforgiving. Yet they write with prodigious energy of lives that contain many surprises.