Literackie fantazje amerykańskich pisarek Glorii Goldreich i Dary Horn inspirowane postacią Marca Chagalla: rodzina w centrum żydowskiego świata

Abstract

This article refers to two novels by contemporary American writers, The Bridal Chair by Gloria Goldreich and The World to Come by Dara Horn. Created by two different authors, the novels are connected by their use of various episodes from the life of the artist Marc Chagall, born in the town of Vitebsk in Belarus. The Bridal Chair belongs to the genre of biofiction and describes the life of Ida Chagall, the artist’s daughter. The World to Come is a complex novel of multiple plots in which the theft of a painting by Marc Chagall becomes a starting point of the story of the Zyskind family with many turns towards Jewish history in the Soviet Union and in the United States. The article recognizes the significance of the family in the Jewish tradition as manifested in these two novels. Fragments referring to strong family relations between characters in both novels are brought to the fore, supporting the claim of the family as the locus of Jewish identity and tradition.