Isaac Bashevis Singer () (November 21, 1902 (see notes below) – July 24, 1991) was a
Polish-born Jewish
American Nobel Prize-winning author and one of the leading figures in the
Yiddish literary movement.
Biography
Early life
Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in 1902 in
Leoncin village near
Warsaw,
Poland, then part of the
Russian Empire. A few years later, the family moved to a nearby Polish town of
Radzymin, which is often and erroneously given as his birthplace. The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but most probably it was November 21, 1902, a date that Singer gave both to his official biographer Paul Kresh,
[Paul Kresh "Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Magician of West 86th Street, A Biography", The Dial Press, New York 1979, p. 390.] and his secretary Dvorah Telushkin.
[Dvorah Telushkin "Master of Dreams", A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer", p. 266, New York, 1997.] It is also consistent with the historical events he and his brother refer to in their childhood memoirs. The often quoted birth date, July 14, 1904 was made up by the author in his youth, most probably to make himself younger to avoid the draft
[Stephen Tree "Isaac Bashevis Singer", Munich, p. 18-19, 2004.] .
