As one of the most well-known Yiddish writers of the twentieth century, Israel Joshua Singer produced an impressive opus – presented in three volumes in Collected Works – in which he tackles religious, social, and political challenges facing the Jewish people. Unabashedly critical, he does not offer substitutes for what he views as failed ideologies, instead seeing the writer’s role in the honest expression of and engagement with this inescapable predicament.

This volume includes twenty short stories that had never been translated into English before, and for the first time presents Singer's four short story collections – Pearls, On Alien Ground, Spring, and Stories – in English as they were published in Yiddish. As with his novels, Singer's short stories and novellas, also included in this volume, are often social criticisms and deal with the harsh realities of war, religion, and politics of his day. The collection is rounded off with New Russia, a travelogue he wrote for the Forverts Newspaper.