The Elsewhere: On Belonging At A Near Distance

Book Description
"The Elsewhere." Or, midbar--biblical Hebrew for both "wilderness" and "speech." A place of possession and dispossession, loss and nostalgia. But also a place that speaks. Ingeniously using a Talmudic interpretive formula about the disposition of boundaries, Newton explores narratives of "place, flight, border, and beyond." The writers of The Elsewhere are a disparate company of twentieth-century memoirists and fabulists from the Levant (Palestine/Israel, Egypt) and East Central Europe. Together, their texts--cunningly paired so as to speak to one another in mutually revelatory ways--narrate the paradox of the "near distance.". Featured Writers: Andre Aciman, Aharon Appelfeld, Elias Canetti, Witold Gombrowicz, Emmanuel Levinas, Dan Pagis, Edward Said, W. G. Sebald, Bruno Schulz, Anton Shammas, and Gregor von Rezzori

From the Inside Flap
"A striking, original piece of work that combines ethical imperative and modernist imagination to produce a beautiful constellation of historical memories."--Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Assistant Professor of English at University of Wisconsin–Madison

About the Author
Adam Zachary Newton is Jane and Rowland Blumberg Centennial Professor in English at the University of Texas at Austin. His previous books include Narrative Ethics, Facing Black and Jew: Literature as Public Space, and most recently The Fence and the Neighbor: Levinas, Leibowitz, and Israel Among the Nations.


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