“Let my name be associated only with laughter or not be celebrated at all.” Born in the Ukraine in 1859, Sholem Aleykhem is a major figure of European literature, yet remains unknown in France. Calling himself a Luftmensch (literally a man of the air, the opposite of a materialist), popular and enchanting, he is the author of a prolific body of work. He has left us characters who have become universal and has been able to describe with tenderness and humour the colourful world of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. Settled in New York in 1905 to flee the Russian pogroms, he was considered the Jewish Mark Twain. He died in 1916 and his funeral remains among the most grandiose in New York history. The novel Wandering Stars was published as a serial between 1909 and 1911 in the pages of a Polish newspaper.
