What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is Nathan Englander’s third book since his unanimously praised 1999 debut collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. With this latest collection, Englander comfirms his place as a master of the short story form, staking a place for himself as an heir to the traditions of Raymond Carver — whose famous story ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ he pays tribute to in his title story — and of the great Jewish storytellers Isaak Babel and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Brought up in an East Coast Jewish Orthodox community, Englander turned secular while at Binghamton University in the mid-Nineties. Despite this unusual turn away from religion, Englander’s darkly comic fiction is animated by the tensions inherent to Jewish culture, whether religious, secular, social or political.
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