In "Journey Through a Small Planet" (1972), the writer Emanuel Litvinoff recalls
his working-class Jewish childhood in the East End of London: a small cluster o
f streets right next to the city, but worlds apart in culture and spirit. With v
ivid intensity Litvinoff describes the overcrowded tenements of Brick Lane and W
hitechapel, the smell of pickled herring and onion bread, the rattle of sewing m
achines and chatter in Yiddish. He also relates stories of his parents, who fled
from Russia in 1914, his experiences at school and a brief flirtation with Comm
unism.
Unsentimental, vital and almost dream like, this is a masterly evocati
on of a long-vanished world.
