The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-01-31
AUTHOR OF 300 YIDDIsH NOVELS.
N. Nj. Saikewitch Writes Them as
He Goes Along.
From the New York SllI


From the New York Sun.
The New York Ghetto can boast of
the possession of a novelist, N. NJ.
Saikewitch, who is the author of at
least 300 novels. At the present time
he has novels running in four of the
Yiddish newspapers of New York.
And for all of those four novels now
running daily the writer has not line
prepared ahead. He writes as he
goes.
Every day he makes the rounds of
the papers and supplies them on the
spot with an installment. In soma
cases the installment takes a page.
And all of Saikewitchs novels are
complicated in plot, crowded with
characters and covering an amazing
extent of ground.
Therefore, among his friends he is
called the Octopus, for they say that
such prolificness seems to demand the
possession of several pairs of arms.
Saikewitch knowns nothing of such
aids to ready writer's as the type
writer, stenographer and phonograph.
Saikewitchs career is in itself
and progress of Yiddish literature. He
is a Russian, about so. He began his
literary career in Russia, where he
was one of the first writers to make
use of Yiddish as a vehicle to reach
the public.
He wrote novels that were i'm
mensely popular-sensational melo-
dramatic penny-dreadfuls that were
seized upon eagerly by readers with
whom stories were scarce. His nov
els were brought out in book form
in those days. They sold in great
numbers.
Yiddish was soon utilized by other
writer's, and Saikewitch's re-eminence
was disputed. Finally he decided to
come to America, where, he argued, the
tide of immigration must have carried
thousands of his admirers.
About seven years ago he landed in
New York. He went to work at once.
He got control of little printing
press in East Broadway and began the
publication of serial novels in weekly
parts. 1t was very much the same
method as that employed by the great
English masters. Dickens and Thack-
cray; but Dickens and Thackeray new
err dreamed of doing what this Yiddlsh
novelist did.
At times he had as many as six
novels running at once in weekly parts.
He would sit in his Office writing all
day long.
The foreman of the printing depart
ment would come in and say that he
wanted an installment.
what are you working on?' Sake
witch would ask.
The Prince of Babel; or, Back from
Exile"
Where are you now?"
The compositor would look at his
proof, and read "He gave one look at
the flaming, blood dripping sword, ana
swung it on high-To be continued III
our next"
"All right" Saikewitch would say,
"just take down few lines so you
won't be idle"
"And he would dictate:
"And the sword descended on tins
guilty head of the miscreant," ETC. et'.
Then he would rush on and write OUT
the rest of the installment. Perhaps III
the middle of it another composlIoI
would enter with a request for copy
"What are you working on? S''tEN-
witch would ask. a
1.-The Nihilist: or the Mysteries OIL
Russian Tyranny.
Where are you?"
The fuse of the bomb was lighted.
and it was placed under the palace OF
Prince Popokoff-"
"All right. I'll dictate few lines:
With a mighty explosion the bom9
roared out it's message of death anu
Prince Popokoff, crying, "Ha, ha! Inc
Nihilists!" went down to the doom ho
deserved
And so it would go week after Week
month after month. The octopus nov
elist, sitting in his chair, with POT u
Russian tea at his elbow-as Balzac
used to have his coffee-and cigarettes
constantly burning, skipped around III
fiction to all parts of the globe for th7
pleasure of his readers.
At first he had hard row TO noe III
New York, but immigration brousnt
more and more readers of Yiddsh 70
the country, and his public increased
rapidly. The establishment ana pros
perity of daily newspapers printed III
Yiddish opened a new field to MN.
All the Yiddish newspapers pIlnt
much fiction of the kind of which Sal-
kewitch is a master, and soon ll0
managers were all after him for nov
els, and for the last four or five years
there has been scarcely a week in WHICH
he has not had four or five, and soihe-
times more, novels running at once
He has more than three hundred nov
els to his credit, he is sill vigorous;
and strong in the wrist, and he VIII
probably run the number up to 1hou
sand before he gives up the game -
prosperous game, too, it is for him.