Satan in Goray

The pogrom that had swept through Poland was now being hailed as a sign of the Coming of the Lord, the birth pangs of the Messiah. And in the little town of Goray, laid waste by murder, famine and demonic spirits, the stargazers said that they had seen one Sabbatai Zevi, robed in purple, bedecked with jewels, riding a wild lion into the city of Jerusalem. So the holy Rabbi Benish was usurped and the townspeople began to believe that the sick would be magically healed and the ugly made beautiful, and their children would wear golden jackets and dine on marzipan and candy. Meanwhile, as the dark forces gather, the prophetess Rechele falls into a hideous ecstatic trance, for it is she who has been chosen as the Devil's bride .

About the Author

Issac Bashevis Singer was born in Poland in 1904, and emigrated to the United States in 1935, shortly after his first novel, Satan In Goray, had been published in instalments. In 1943 he became a US citizen, but he continued to write almost exclusively in Yiddish, personally supervising the translation of his works into English. In 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Issac Bashevis Singer died in Florida in 1991.