Homeless Tongues: Poetry and Languages of the Sephardic Diaspora - Tapa dura

"In this book, Monique Balbuena rescues three Sephardi poets from near oblivion. Significant on their own, together they challenge the usual canons of Jewish literature and the general consensus on Jewish languages, as well as the standard theories of minority literatures." -- Nancy E. Berg * Washington University * "Monique Balbuena shifts between theoretical arguments and a meticulous analysis of poems by the three authors, providing us a deep reading of the texts. At the same time, she places the poems in a changing context, using interpretive tools from literary theory. The author's contribution is an original and ambitious one: it allows us to see relationships that aren't always evident and it offers new insight into 20th-century Jewish literary history." -- Elisa Martin Ortega * Sefarad * "The close readings that the author provides make the work of these three poets accessible to anyone interested in multilingual, transnational poetry and in the Jewish literary repertoire...Homeless Tongues therefore does more than expand specific canons (of Jewish literatures, of world literatures, and of literatures, to use Rebecca Walkowitz's terms, that are "born translated"). The book ultimately shows that linguistic diversity is good for people and good for democracy, which also is what makes Homeless Tongues so significant and timely in the current political climate." -- Tabea Alexa Linhard * Shofar: Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies * "The great strength of this volume lies in its expert close readings, which in their unusual length and detail offer a rare opportunity for a reader to become intimate with unfamiliar sources....Balbuena's analysis of Sephardic, in general, and Ladino, in particular, poetic production addresses a major gap in research on Jewish literature. The perspectives elaborated in this book are valuable for any scholar of minor languages or literatures, and they will be particularly useful to those interested in the increasingly vital field of Sephardic studies." -- Harry Eli Kashdan * Symposium * "Homeless Tongues has opened a new path for Sephardic scholarship....Homeless Tongues takes a crucial step forward in assigning value to contemporary Sephardic literature....Balbuena also provides a much needed summary of the field of Jewish Spanish, Sephardic studies, and contemporary Sephardic culture in general. The reference section of the monograph-almost as large as her lengthy chapters-provides a veritable gold mine for future scholarship." -- Judith K. Lang Hilgartner * Studies in Contemporary Jewry * "A splendid work that will be a fascinating read for all those who are interested in Jewish literatures and languages and in poetology." -- Lazar Fleishman * Stanford University. *

This book examines a group of multicultural Jewish poets, Algerian Sadia Lévy, Argentine Juan Gelman, and Israeli Margalit Matitiahu, to address the issue of multilingualism within a context of minor languages and literatures, nationalism, and diaspora.