This post was originally published on Audible.com.
The Jewish diaspora is vast, diverse, and full of stories. Some of the best Jewish authors in recent years have published a multitude of books about everything from love, identity, and history to crime, romance, alternate history, and what it means to come of age in the modern world. While this list is by no means complete, these Jewish authors have written some of the most fascinating and influential Jewish literature, and they represent a deep catalog of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in a wide range of genres.
James McBride
National Book Award-winning author James McBride is the ultimate multi-hyphenate. In addition to his many works of fiction, perhaps most notably his celebrated novel The Good Lord Bird, he also spent years working as a reporter after graduating from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and won widespread praise for his lyrical memoir The Color of Water, a tribute to his mother. And to top it all off? McBride is also an incredibly talented jazz musician.
Philip Roth
One of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century, Philip Roth was known for his probing character studies, ambitious plotting and social commentary, and provocative studies of Jewish American life, often with a blackly comic twist. Born March 19, 1933 in Newark, NJ, Roth often used his beloved city (also Audible’s proud hometown) as a setting for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral, the nonfiction Patrimony, and the alternate history The Plot Against America. He passed away in 2018.
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon, born in Washington, DC, in 1963, is the author of multiple award-winning literary and genre fiction books, in addition to his work in TV and film. His debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which he began writing as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, was released in 1988. His third novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. Chabon made the switch to genre fiction in 2007 with The Yiddish Policemen's Union, an alternate history and mystery mash-up. Chabon's latest novel is Moonglow. He has also worked as the showrunner of Star Trek: Picard and co-creator of the Netflix show Unbelievable.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Michael Chabon masterfully renders the funny, tender, and captivating first-person narrative of Art Bechstein, whose confusion and heartache echo the tones of literary forebears like The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield and The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway....
Elie Wiesel
Born Eliezer Wiesel (1928-2016), this Romanian-born author and Nobel laureate was best known for his seminal work Night, a personal account of his survival in both the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps during the Holocaust. Wiesel became a professor at Boston University, which eventually created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. Wiesel’s impact as an advocate for peace, empathy, and unity can not be understated.
Night
Nathan Englander
Born in New York in 1970, Nathan Englander is perhaps best known for his short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. Primarily a short story writer whose work has been featured in The Best American Short Fiction anthologies and recognized as a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Englander is also a playwright and a translator. His latest novel, Dinner at the Center of the Earth, is a thriller about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, narrated by Mark Bramhall.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
By Nathan Englander
Narrated by Fred Sanders, Lorna Raver, Lincoln Hoppe, John Rubinstein, Kirby Heyborne, Arthur Morey, Mark Bramhall
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
These eight new stories from the celebrated novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander display a gifted young author grappling with the great questions of modern life....
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The second woman to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court and its longest-serving Jewish justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020 at the age of 87. A trailblazing lawyer, activist, and role model, Ginsburg had a long and acclaimed history of dissenting with oppression and fighting for equal rights, earning her the moniker Notorious RBG. Her outstanding memoirs include My Own Words and Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue.
Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue
By Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amanda L. Tyler
Narrated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amanda L. Tyler, Eliza Foss
Franz Kafka
Hailing from a Jewish-Czech family in Prague, Kafka (1883-1924) was known for his meditations on identity, work life and the search for purpose. His legendary works include The Metamorphosis, a short story detailing one man’s transformation into an insect, and The Trial, an absurdist nightmare of bureaucracy run rampant. Kafka’s works tap into the existential dread of daily life, and his short stories are often analyzed in philosophical contexts, birthing the term “Kafkaesque.”
The Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka, Susan Bernofsky - translator
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Victor Bevine, Christa Lewis
The Metamorphosis
Jonathan Safran Foer
Born in 1977, Jonathan Safran Foer is a writer of fiction and nonfiction who studied under Joyce Carol Oates in college. Oates encouraged him to pursue writing seriously, and he published his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, in 2002, at age 25. It won the Jewish Book Award and was adapted into a movie starring Elijah Wood. Foer followed it up with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, set against the backdrop of 9/11, which was also adapted to film. His nonfiction includes Eating Animals and We Are the Weather, which focus on vegetarianism and sustainability. His latest novel is Here I Am, narrated by Ari Fliakos.
We Are the Weather
Some people reject the fact, overwhelmingly supported by scientists, that our planet is warming because of human activity. But do those of us who accept the reality of human-caused climate change truly believe it? If we did, surely we would be roused to act on what we know...
Julie Orringer
Julie Orringer is a novelist and short story writer who studied fiction writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Much of her work centers around the experience of Jewish characters, both in contemporary times and during World War II. Her first novel, The Invisible Bridge, is about a Hungarian-Jewish student who moves to Paris and falls in love with a ballet teacher on the brink of World War II. Her second novel, The Flight Portfolio, is based on the true story of an American journalist who helped Jewish artists escape Europe during the war. Her short story "Can You Feel This?" is part of a series of short stories by literary writers about birth, life, and death.
Can You Feel This?
Julie Orringer’s Can You Feel This? is part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each piece can be listened to in a single setting....
David Bezmozgis
David Bezmozgis was born in Latvia and moved to Canada at age six with his family. He's a short story writer and novelist, as well as a screenwriter. His first book was a collection of short fiction, Natasha and Other Stories, followed by his debut novel, The Free World, about Jewish refugees from Soviet Russia. It was published widely and received numerous accolades, including being short-listed for Canada's Governor General's Award. His second novel, The Betrayers, tells the haunting story of a disgraced Israeli politician. He's also written a novel based on his short story, "Natasha," and worked on the TV show Orphan Black.
The Betrayers
A compact saga of love, duty, family, and sacrifice from a rising star....
Michael W. Twitty
Michael W. Twitty is an African-American Jewish food writer and critic who is known for his popular Afroculinaria blog, which explores Southern and African American food throughout history. His book The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History of the Old South won the James Beard Foundation Award and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction. His work explores culture, heritage, food, and Judaism.
Koshersoul
Natasha Díaz
Natasha Díaz is an author and screenwriter whose work touches on Judaism, being biracial, and straddling two cultures. Born and raised in New York City, she was only nine years old when she appeared on Oprah alongside her mother to talk about being raised in a multicultural household. Her debut YA novel, Color Me In, follows a teenage girl whose parents are getting a divorce as she struggles to reconcile not being "Black enough" for her mother's family and her father’s insisting she must have a belated bat mitzvah.
Color Me In
A powerful coming-of-age novel pulled from personal experience about the meaning of friendship, the joyful beginnings of romance, and the racism and religious intolerance that can both strain a family to the breaking point and strengthen its bonds....
Viktor Frankel
Viktor E. Frankel (March 26, 1905 – September 2, 1997) was a neurologist and psychiatrist known for birthing the concept of “Logotherapy,” an arm of psychotherapy that focuses on the search for the meaning of life as the greatest motivating force for humanity. Frankel’s most famous work is Man’s Search for Meaning, a deeply moving autobiography detailing his experience surviving in a concentration camp while musing on his place in the universe; a companion piece compiled from his public lectures, Yes to Life, was published in 2020.
Man's Search for Meaning
As relevant today as it was when it was first published, Man’s Search for Meaning is a book for finding strength and purpose in times of great despair.
“This is a book I reread a lot … it gives me hope … it gives me a sense of strength.”—Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper 360/CNN
Viktor E. Frankl was a medical doctor at a psychiatric hospital in 1942 when he became a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps in World War II. In 1946, he published this book about his camp experiences and a method of psychotherapy he developed. Forty-five years later, it was still named one of the most influential books in the United States.
Part One describes his three years in four Nazi concentration camps, which took the lives of his wife, father, mother, and brother. He closely observed inmates’ reactions to their situation, as well as how survivors came to terms with their liberation.
Part Two, introducing logotherapy, is an academic discussion of the psychological reactions experienced by all inmates to one degree or another. It solidified Frankl’s early theory that humanity’s primary motivational force is finding meaning in one’s life.
In Germany, titled Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager, or A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp, its title in the first English translation was From Death-Camp to Existentialism. As of 2022, this book has sold 16 million copies and been published in 52 languages.
Joshua Henkin
Joshua Henkin is a short story writer and novelist whose work has received wide acclaim. His first novel was Matrimony, narrated by Kevin Pariseau, followed by The World Without You, about a Jewish family coming to terms with the loss of a son. It was a National Jewish Book Award finalist in 2012, and a movie adaptation is forthcoming. His next novel, Morningside Heights, will release in 2021.
The World Without You
From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Matrimony, a moving, mesmerizing new novel about love, loss, and the aftermath of a family tragedy....
Cynthia Ozick
Born in New York City in 1928, Cynthia Ozick is known for her short fiction and novels exploring themes of Jewish-American identity and the repercussions of the Holocaust. She received the National Jewish Book Award for The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories, and her novel Foreign Bodies was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Ozick's short story "The Shawl" first appeared in The New Yorker in the 1980s, but has since been widely anthologized. Both "The Shawl" and its companion short story, "Rosa," won the O. Henry Prize.
The Shawl
At once fiercely immediate and complex in their implications, “The Shawl” and “Rosa” succeed in imagining the unimaginable....
Walter Mosley
Walter Mosley was born in California in 1952 to a Jewish mother and a Black father who couldn't obtain a marriage license before his birth due to racist miscegenation laws. He grew up in Los Angeles and lives in New York City, and both settings have influenced his work. Mosley is the author of the Easy Rawlins series, starting with Devil in a Blue Dress, narrated by Michael Boatman, which follows the misadventures of a Black WWII veteran working as a PI in LA. He's also the author of the Leonid McGill series standalone novels such as Down the River unto the Sea and the upcoming short story collection, The Awkward Black Man.
Devil in a Blue Dress
Set in 1940s Los Angeles, Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley takes us on an underground tour of a city that is now only alive in memories. Through jazz clubs, bars, and hardened streets, this noir-style series paints a gritty picture of a post-WWII L.A. that is very racially divided. Easy Rawlins, the novel's protagonist, is a black veteran looking for a way to cover his mortgage when a suspicious white man in a crisp suit offers him good money to locate a woman named Daphne Monet. Michael Boatman's smooth baritone transports you to the era as he effortlessly moves between characters, first with a lilting tone; then a deep, raspy voice; and back again to that easy, rhythmic cadence. -Katie
Nicole Krauss
Nicole Krauss was born in New York City in 1974. She began writing as a teenager, then studied poetry under Joseph Brodsky at Stanford University and later produced a documentary about his work after Brodsky's death. Her first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, was published in 2001 to great acclaim. Her following books include The History of Love, Great House, and Forest Dark. Each of her books explores Jewish history, family connections, and themes of identity. She is also a short story writer, and her collection To Be a Man released in 2020.
Forest Dark
Kyra Davis
The biracial daughter of a Jewish mother and an African American father, Kyra Davis was born in California and raised by her single mom. She began writing in 2001, following her divorce. Her first novel and series debut, Sex, Murder, and a Double Latte introduces readers to Sophie Katz, a half-Black, half-Jewish accidental investigator in Hollywood. The series is narrated by Gabra Zackman. Davis also the author of Deceptive Innocence, the first in the Pure Sin mystery/thriller series, and Just One Night, an erotic romance series.
Just One Night
A buttoned-up businesswoman has a fling with a stranger on a trip to Vegas - only to find herself under his mysterious, sexy power in the boardroom and the bedroom....
