Der toyt in Venedig: Death in Venice

Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice — in Yiddish, German, and English Thomas Mann’s celebrated novella Death in Venice is presented here in an unusual trilingual and biscriptal edition, centred on the 1929 Yiddish translation by M. Holtsblat. The volume is designed for readers who wish not merely to read the work in Yiddish, but to follow the relationship between the Yiddish translation, Mann’s German original, and Kenneth Burke’s classic English translation. Each synchronized facing-page spread presents: Holtsblat’s Yiddish translation in Hebrew script, set as the principal text; right-to-left YIVO romanization placed interlineally above the corresponding Yiddish; Thomas Mann’s German original on the facing page, positioned directly opposite the Yiddish; Kenneth Burke’s English translation alongside the German. The texts have been coordinated paragraph by paragraph and section by section, allowing readers to move easily among all three languages while retaining the structure and progression of Mann’s novella. The volume also includes introductory and reference material explaining the concept of the trilingual and biscriptal edition, the public-domain editions employed in its preparation, and the principles of YIVO romanization, together with the YIVO alphabet and romanization tables. The book is arranged right to left, placing the Yiddish text at the centre of the reading experience. Suitable for readers of Yiddish literature, students of Yiddish and German, translators, linguists, comparative-literature scholars, and anyone interested in the multilingual transmission of modern European literature. Yiddish Literature in Original and Romanization series Conceived and compiled by T.D.I. Kamusella