The Penitent: Penguin Modern Classics

Presents the story of Joseph Shapiro, a disillusioned and aimless man who discovers a purpose to his life through the Jewish faith. This title offers an examination of the nature of faith, the question of identity and the notion of how to lead a good life.

Born in 1902, Isaac Bashevis Singer grew up among fellow Jewish families in Poland. In response to the growing Nazi threat in neighbouring Germany, Singer emigrated to America. Settling in New York, he worked as a journalist for a Yiddish-language newspaper,The Forward. Singer was insistent that even after the Second World War, a wide audience remained for Yiddish texts, and each of his novels were originally written in his native language. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. Since Singer's death on July 24 1991 his name has been used in honour for a street in Surfside, Florida, and for the full academic scholarship for undergraduate studies at the University of Miami.

Singer is a writer of far greater than ordinary power
Singer is a master storyteller