The Tavern of Popricani

In this novelistic account of his childhood in the late nineteenth-century Romanian countryside, Yiddish writer Yitskhok Horowitz charts his episodic memories in the literary voice of his child self. The sole Jewish family in the village of Popricani, the Horowitzes ran the local tavern, which provides the backdrop for this child's-eye view of events, from wolf chases to serpent possessions, and culminating in the dramatic local echoes of the Romanian Peasants' Revolt. By turns endearing and unnerving, The Tavern of Popricani was originally published in Yiddish in 1953. It offers an account of the rhythms of life for one Jewish family in the hinterlands of Eastern Europe.