A Cheerful Soul and Other Stories

Hersh Dovid Nomberg

Translated by Daniel Kennedy

Now largely forgotten, Hersh Dovid Nomberg was once one of the most popular Yiddish writers of his generation, best known for his short stories delving into the concerns and psychologies of those on the margins of society.

These eight stories, collected and translated by Daniel Kennedy, center around a motley cast of wanderers and exiles: modern Jews who have left their homes to join Europe’s counterculture of bohemians, artists, aesthetes and freethinkers.

Tales of rivalry, debauchery and revenge in the Western European diaspora; mournful happenings on snowy mountain peaks; the comings and goings of various oddballs and outcasts in émigré boarding houses, and the pangs of immigrant nostalgia.

“Nomberg never wrote a sentence that didn’t contain the seeds of an idea.” — Froyim Kaganovski

About the Author
Hersh Dovid Nomberg (1876–1927)  was born in Mszczonow (Yiddish: Ashminov) a market town about thirty miles from Warsaw. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his maternal grandfather in a devoutly religious milieu. He began publishing poems and short stories around 1900 in both Yiddish and Hebrew and was considered one of the most influential Yiddish writers of his generation. Nomberg died at the age of 51, having suffered from chronic lung problems for most of his life.

About the Translator

Daniel Kennedy is a translator and editor based in France. His first book-length translation, Zalman Shneour’s A Death: Notes of a Suicide, was published by Wakefield Press in 2019.

Paperback, 174 pages
Release date, June 8, 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1-64525-068-5
Price: US$15.00