18: Jewish Stories Translated from 18 Languages - Nora Gold - ★★★

EDITOR: Nora Gold

GENRE: Short Stories

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: An anthology of eighteen *translated* multilingual stories of Jewish fiction by Jewish authors from across the world. I’d have loved this a lot more had there been more stories than excerpts. If reading an excerpt doesn’t bother you much, then this is worth a go.

Editor Nora Gold is the founder-editor of jewishfiction.net, an online literary journal devoted exclusively to Jewish fiction. It focuses on contemporary authors writing on Jewish themes, either in or translated to English. In its thirteen years of existence, the journal has published more than 500 stories of novel excerpts originally written in nineteen languages.

The introduction made by Ms. Gold in this anthology highlights the uniqueness of Jewish fiction. She notes that Jewish authors are based in a multitude of countries, and accordingly, Jewish fiction is written in a multitude of languages, unlike other fiction, which is written in the dominant language of the author and is usually restricted to their mother tongue or English. The variety of languages these stories were originally written in proves her point. The works herein are translated from many languages such as Spanish, Hungarian, Croatian, Yiddish, French, Czech, and Russian.

Other than the note by the editor, there is also a foreword by Dr. Josh Lambert about multilinguism being an inherent component of Jewish experiences. Both of these introductory pieces were insightful to read.

I have always been fond of anthologies, but my favourite ones are themed collections. As such, this anthology grabbed my eyeballs by its tagline. When I saw Elie Wiesel listed among the contributing authors, I jumped at it. However, the tagline turned out to be a little misleading.

The ‘stories’ in this collection aren’t all short stories. In fact, the very first entry turned out to be a translated excerpt from one of Elie Wiesel’s novels, titled ‘Hostage’. I kept my fingers crossed that it would be the only excerpt. To my disappointment, ten of the eighteen ‘stories’ turned out to be novel excerpts. I am the kind of reader who doesn’t read excerpts even when they are offered at the end of novels as teasers for buying more of the author’s works. I simply can’t read part of a story; it’s either all or nothing for me. Moreover, if the original author had written the text as part of a larger narrative, I cannot judge its fictional effectiveness based on an excerpt. As such, honest confession: I didn’t read any of the excerpts in this collection. Knowing that none of their source materials were originally in English, and in some cases, might not be available as a translated novel in English, was enough for me to avoid them. If you aren’t bothered by reading only scenes instead of complete stories, this won’t be an issue for you.

My rating is thus based only on the short stories. As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the eight stories, four stories reached or crossed the four-star mark. The rest were mixed in impact. These were my favourites from this anthology:

❀ The Guest - Varda Fiszbein - Translated from Spanish: A witty story about how a guest outsmarted the host during a family dinner. I did guess the ending before it came up, but the journey to the end was great. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

❀ The First Christmas - Gábor T. Szántó - Translated from Hungarian: Loved this dark story of a Jewish father who purchases a Christmas tree after his young sons insist. The ending left me stunned. Brilliant! - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

❀ The Rebbetzin's Sense of Justice - Lily Berger - Translated from Yiddish: A first-person narration by a student about his Reb Fishel and his wife Khaye, contrary personalities who still share a great bond in marriage. If ever there were a character whom I would love to have by my side in real life, it would be the rebbetzin from this story. She gets all the stars, though the plot was also nice. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

❀ Luck - Irena Dousková - Translated from Czech: Two main characters who are opposite in nature are forced to unite for a task. One of the darkest tales in the book, with an ending that I didn’t see coming. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

All in all, I did enjoy a few of the stories I read. But I am sure reading the entire collection might result in a different level of satisfaction. I regret I wasn’t able to do so, but what I read was enough to make me try more of Nora Gold’s collections. I just hope that the blurbs of any future collections would indicate whether excerpts are also included under “stories.”

3 stars, based on the average of my ratings for the eight short stories. This rating is not indicative of the complete collection.

My thanks to River Street Writing for providing me with a complimentary copy of “18: Jewish Stories Translated from 18 Languages” at my request. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Want to try another wonderful Jewish anthology? Check out ‘Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine’, edited by Susan Weidman Schneider and Yona Zeldis McDonough.