Grigori Kanovich

Sleazy I molitvy durakov

The Tears and Prayers of Fools Novel. Vilnius 1983. 320 pages

Foreign rights:

Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, US - Syracuse University Press

This extraordinary novel is part of Grigory Kanovich’s “Litvak saga,” his tribute to Jewish life before the Holocaust. Set in a small Lithuanian town in the late nineteenth century, the story begins with the arrival of a stranger who sets everyone on edge and seems to know their secrets. Is he a messenger from God, a long-lost son, a saint, or a madman? As the stranger in the velvet yarmulke makes his rounds, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters— Rabbi Uri, the aged rabbi; Itsik Magid, the strapping young woodcutter; the resour- ceful widow Golda; Markus Fradkin, the wealthy timber merchant, and his beautiful daughter Zelda; Yeshua Mandel, the tavern keeper, his troubled son Simeon, and their devoted servant girl Morta. A work of realism as well as a parable, Kanovich’s novel illuminates the most intimate fears, dreams, and longings of the shtetl’s inha- bitants.