Singer Isaak Bashevis (14 July or 26 November 1902, Leoncin – 24 July 1991, Surfside near Miami) – Yiddish writer, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Born Itzek Hersh Zinger (Icek Hersz Zynger), Singer was raised in the family of Rabbi Pinchas Menachem and Batsheva, daughter of Biłgoraj Rabbi Yaakov Zylberman. He had three siblings: older sister Esther Kreitman, who went on to become a writer, older brother Israel Joshua, also a writer, and younger brother Moshe who became a rabbi.

Singer was born in Leoncin, but in 1907 his family moved to Radzymin, and in 1908 to Warsaw, to Krochmalna Street. In 1917, during World War I, Batsheva left the city with the children to join her father in Biłgoraj. Little Isaac attended a religious school there and was tutored by his grandfather. In 1921, he came to Warsaw and attended the Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary. He dropped out of the school after a year and returned to Biłgoraj, where he made his living from giving Hebrew lessons. In 1923, Isaac was hired at the editorial office of Literatishe Bleter after being recommended by his older brother, Israel Joshua Singer, already a well-established writer. He worked as a proofreader and with time started to translate literature into Yiddish, including the works of such prominent writers as Erich Maria Remarque, Knut Hamsun, or Thomas Mann. In 1925, Literatishe Bleter published his first short story, Oyf der elter, signed with the pen name Bashevis (derived from the name of his mother Batsheva). Singer also collaborated with the Unzer Ekspres newspaper. In the following years, he published subsequent essays and short stories in the press: Werter oder bilder (1927), Shamaj Vayts (1929), Zvishn vent (1930). He mingled with the literary milieu of Warsaw and was a close friend of Hillel and Aron Zeitlin. In 1932, together with Aron Zeitlin, he founded the Globus monthly. The magazine published Singer’s first novel, Satan in Goray (Yiddish: Der sotn in Goray), in instalments.

In 1935, Singer went to the United States at the invitation of his brother, who had emigrated there a year earlier. He initially worked as a proofreader for the Forverts daily and later got his own column in the newspaper, which he ran for many years. He used the pseudonyms Warszawski and D. Segal and wrote journalist pieces, literary and theatre criticism, as well as memoirs and answers to letters from readers. He also further developed his literary career – the first full edition of Satan in Goray was issued in 1943, and the year 1950 saw the publication of The Family Moscat (Yiddish: Di familye Mushkat).

Over the course of his career, Bashevis wrote his works in Yiddish, but they only appeared in print in English translation. His short stories and novels tackled various religious and philosophical issues prevalent among Orthodox and assimilated Jews. Many of his works included autobiographical themes emphasising Singer’s ties with Poland, for example In My Father’s Court (Yiddish: Mayn tatns beys din shtub), Shosha, or Love and Exile. Most of his novels are set in pre-1939 Poland. The stories depict a cross-section of Jewish communities, the changes they underwent, and the problems they had to face – The Slave (Yiddish: Der knecht), The Manor (Yiddish: Der hoyf), The Magician of Lublin (Yiddish: Der kunzenmacher fun Lublin), Scum (Yiddish: Shoym), or The Certificate (Yiddish: Zerifikat).

Short stories held a particularly important position in Singer’s oeuvre. They were published in several collections: Short Friday and Other Stories (1965), The Séance and Other Stories (1968), Passions and Other Stories (1975), The Spinoza of Market Street (1963), The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories (1988). He also wrote children’s literature, assembled in the collection Stories for Children (1984).

Singer’s writing has been translated into many languages and continues to be read by subsequent generations. Bashevis Singer was a laureate of many prestigious awards and honorary doctorates in the United States, Italy, France, and Israel, and in 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His works have been adapted for the screen several times: Yentl (1983), The Magician of Lublin (1979), and Enemies. A Love Story (1989). Some stories have also been staged in theatres – in Poland, among others: 1666 (2011; based on Satan in Goray), Enemies. A Love Story (1995, 2009), Stories for Children (2007), About a Carp, a Goat and a Trumpet that Put Fires Down (2014).

Singer died in Florida in 1991.