Promotional Information

The literary culture of the Ottoman Empire's Sephardic Jews

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Note on Translation, Transcription, Proper Names, and Dates
Introduction

Part 1. The Press
The Emergence of modern Culture Production in Ladino: The Sephardi Press
The Press in Salonica: a Case Study

Part 2. Belles Lettres
The Serialized Novel as Rewriting
Ladino Fiction: Case Studies

Part 3. Theater
Sephardi Theater: Project and Practice
Ladino Drama: Case Studies
Conclusion

Notes
Index

About the Author

Olga Borovaya is a visiting scholar at Stanford University. She is author of Modernization of a Culture (in Russian).

Reviews

"A superb literary-historical study of Ladino literature... that goes very far in fleshing out, correcting, and innovatively interpreting the history and substance of Ladino literary production." Sarah Abrevaya Stein, author of Making Jews Modern (IUP, 2003) "This groundbreaking, eye-opening study demonstrates that literary and cultural analytical tools are key to answering historical questions about Ladino texts... Borovaya's study underscores the richness of Ladino literature as a source for the history of Ottoman Sephardim and their diasporic offshoots." Aviva Ben-Ur, University of Massachusetts "Olga Borovaya's new book, Modern Ladino Culture, is the first to examine as a unified phenomenon three genres of Ladino cultural production: the press, belles lettres, and theater. Unknown in earlier periods of the Ottoman Jewish history, Borovaya identifies these genres as imports from the West which "took root" among Ottoman Sephardim at the beginning of the twentieth century and developed within the context of the local culture." Randall C. Belinfante, Jewish Book Council "Olga Borovaya provides an innovative approach to the study of Ladino culture. An expert in romance philology, in recent years she has focused on the unique developments of its Judeo-Spanish expression, Ladino, the vernacular language used by the Sephardim. In this book, she examines the dramatic changes that occurred in Ladino culture during the late Ottoman period (mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries), instigated by the press... This is a groundbreaking and comprehensive study of the modernization of the culture of a minority group. It examines the development of the Sephardi press and its impact on the emergence of Ladino belles lettres and the Sephardi theater. On the basis of exhaustive research, Borovaya combines enlightening analysis with detailed information in a study that provides an innovative approach to the study of Ladino culture and Sephardi history. In addition to scholars of Sephardi studies, this work is of tremendous importance for those interested in cultural developments among minority groups, and the interconnections among various cultural aspects." - Rachel Simon, H-Judaic