The empire of Kalman the cripple
By: Yehuda Elberg ; translated from the Yiddish [by the author].
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: Library of modern Jewish literature
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: [Syracuse, N.Y.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 326
Description: A character study that reads with the suspense of a detective novel, The Empire of Kalman the Cripple is the story of an individual living in a Jewish shtetl in Poland, just before World War II.

True-to-life characters - saints, dunces, Jews, non-Jews, rabbis, and petty politicians - populate Kalman's shtetl. This unlikely hero is a cunning ill-tempered man who maliciously seeks revenge on others. Yet, in his portrayal, Elberg paints Kalman as a tortured soul, one with whom the reader ultimately has no choice but to sympathize.