Radix
Isaac Goldemberg (born 1945) is a Peruvian-American author, founder of the Latin American Writers Institute, Brújula/Compass, and "Hostos Review", and a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Hostos Community College. Goldemberg was born in Peru, and immigrated to New York City, where he currently lives, in 1964. He is a fellow member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language.His novel The Fragmented Life of Don Jacobo Lerner, was chosen by the National Yiddish Book Center as, "one of the 100 greatest Jewish Books of the last 150 years." The book tells the story of the life of Jacobo Lerner, a Jewish merchant, who immigrates to Peru from Eastern Europe. Jacobo has an illegitimate son, Efraín, by a Christian woman who he later abandons and thus never knows his son. Jacobo ultimately fails to achieve his goal of creating a traditional Jewish family before he dies, having been rejected by the respectable Miriam Abramowitz. Thematically, the novel presents an examination of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism. The book is divided into chapters which consist of vignettes written in the voices of the characters and an omnipotent narrator, as well as "Crónicas", and excerpts from Alma Hebrea, a publication of the Jewish community in the novel, which features writings by the characters