In this presentation, Anna Miranski will speak about her book, Poem by Poem, Fable by Fable, Discovering My Father and Learning His Language. This book has just won the 2025 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Yiddish. Anna Miransky’s father was the poet and fabulist Peretz Miransky, a member of Yung-Vilne, the last important Yiddish Literary group in Eastern Europe.
Anna’s book began as a pandemic project in which she resolved to read every poem and fable in her father’s five substantial volumes of verse but it became something much larger. The book is led by Peretz Miransky’s poetry but it is not a book of poetry translation. It is a melding of biography, memoir, psychology and Yiddish literary history. It is also a very personal recounting of Anna’s changed relationship with her father as a result of reading his poetry.