Isaac Bashevis Singer Centennial

It's the 100th anniversary of Isaac Bashevis Singer's birth, and to mark the occasion the Library of America, which is putting out a three-volume edition of his short stories, has put together a tribute website with tons of biographical and bibliographical information (not to mention an amazing collection of photographs; I would show you one if only I could figure out how to download it on account of the whole thing is done up in Flash, though very nicely done up to be sure). There's also going to be a slew of events all year long, including a reading at Symphony Space this Wednesday night. The evening's lineup celebrates immigrant American writers and includes stories by Jaime Manrique and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in addition to Singer. The readers are B.D. Wong, Sarita Choudhury, and Isaiah Sheffer.

In 1998, I interviewed Dvorah Telushkin, who started out driving Singer from his apartment to Bard College so she could audit his class and ended up as one of his translators.