Editing Irving Howe (section)

==Author, editor, translator==
Known for [[literary criticism]] as well as for his [[Social activism|social]] and [[political activism]], Howe wrote critical biographies of [[Thomas Hardy]], [[William Faulkner]], and [[Sherwood Anderson]]; a book-length examination of the relation of politics to fiction; and theoretical essays on Modernism, the nature of fiction, and [[Social Darwinism]]. He was among the first to reevaluate the works of [[Edwin Arlington Robinson]] and to help establish Robinson's reputation as a great 20th century poet.

Howe authored numerous books including ''Decline of the New'', ''[[World of Our Fathers]]'', ''Politics and the Novel'', and his autobiography, ''A Margin of Hope''. He also wrote a biography of [[Leon Trotsky]], who was one of his childhood heroes. Howe's writing often expressed his disapproval of [[Capitalism|capitalist America]].

His exhaustive multidisciplinary history of the Jewish immigrant experience, ''[[World of Our Fathers]]'' (1976), is considered a classic of [[social analysis]] and general scholarship. The book examines the dynamic of [[Eastern European Jewry|Eastern European Jews]] and the culture they created in New York. It explores the once-thriving Jewish socialism of the [[Lower East Side]]—the intellectual milieu from which Howe emerged.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Hanson |first=Matt A. |title=Irving Howe's Socialist Reflections on Jewish Life in the US |magazine=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] |date=6 January 2025 |url=https://jacobin.com/2025/01/irving-howe-jewish-culture-socialism}}</ref> ''World of Our Fathers'' reached #1 on [[The New York Times]] bestseller list for non-fiction in April 1976.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=Hawes Publications |url=https://www.hawes.com/1976/1976-04-18.pdf |title=The New York Times Best Seller List – April 18, 1976 - Non-Fiction}}</ref> The following year it won the [[National Book Award]] [[List of winners of the National Book Award#History|in History]],<ref name=nba1977>[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1977 "National Book Awards – 1977"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 17, 2012.</ref> the [[Francis Parkman Prize]], and the [[National Jewish Book Award]] in the History category.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Past Winners |publisher=Jewish Book Council |url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners?category=30765 |language=en |access-date=July 1, 2022}}</ref>

Howe edited and translated many [[Yiddish]] stories and commissioned the first English translation of [[Isaac Bashevis Singer]] for ''[[Partisan Review]]''.<ref name="NYT" /> In his assessments of Jewish-American novelists, Howe was critical of [[Philip Roth]]'s early works, ''[[Goodbye, Columbus|Goodbye Columbus]]'' and ''[[Portnoy's Complaint]]'', as philistine and vulgar caricatures of Jewish life that pandered to the worst [[anti-Semitic stereotypes]].

In 1987, Howe was a recipient of a [[MacArthur Fellowship]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-1987/irving-howe |title=Irving Howe - Literary and Social Critic - Class of 1987 |publisher=MacArthur Foundation |date=1 January 2005}}</ref>