Bashevis Reconsidered: Rereading Singer through Gender and Queer Lenses

Abstract Departing from the conventional reading of Singer through the biographical prism that perceives him as an anti-modernist misogynist, this article proposes a new approach to Bashevis’s literary legacy. Rereading Bashevis through gender and queer lenses—focusing on works available only in Yiddish: “Vayber” (1925), Yarme un Keyle (1976–77), and Di Mishpokhe (1982–83)—reveals unexpected feminist aspects of Bashevis’s writing: his profound exploration of complexities of gender, sexuality, female agency, and rebellion against heteronormativity. Moreover, Singer’s aesthetic of darkness and pessimism resonate with Jack Halberstam’s concept of the queer art of failure.