Non­fic­tion

Dou­ble Dias­po­ra in Sephardic Literature

David A. Wacks
  • From the Publisher
December 22, 2015

The year 1492 has long divid­ed the study of Sephardic cul­ture into two dis­tinct peri­ods, before and after the expul­sion of Jews from Spain. David A. Wacks exam­ines the works of Sephardic writ­ers from the 13th to the 16th cen­turies and shows that this lit­er­a­ture was shaped by two inter­wo­ven expe­ri­ences of dias­po­ra: first from the Bib­li­cal home­land Zion and lat­er from the ances­tral host­land, Sefarad. Jew­ish in Spain and Span­ish abroad, these writ­ers nego­ti­at­ed Jew­ish, Span­ish, and dias­poric idioms to pro­duce a unique­ly Sephardic per­spec­tive. Wacks brings Dias­po­ra Stud­ies into dia­logue with medieval and ear­ly mod­ern Sephardic lit­er­a­ture for the first time.

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