Isaak Babel' (1894-1940) is arguably one of the greatest modern short story writers of the early twentieth century. Yet his life and work are shrouded in the mystery of who Babel' was-an Odessa Jew who wrote in Russian, who came from one of the most vibrant centers of east European Jewish culture, and who all his life loved Yiddish and the stories of Sholom Aleichem This is the first book in English to study the intertextuality of Babel''s work. It...