On the way back, we passed by an old synagogue and Kafka started talking about the golem. Kafka believed in the golem, even that there could be another one in the future. There must be magical words that have the power to turn a piece of clay into a living creature. Isn't it God - according to Kabbalah - who created the world by uttering sacred words? In the beginning was the Word.

Blending comedy with drama, Isaac Bashevis Singer combines charming stories from his childhood in the ghettos of pre-war Poland with bittersweet narratives about immigrants in the United States in his fifth collection of short stories. With vivid characters, crystalline language, joyful or bitter humor, tender irony, discoveries and twists, the great Nobel laureate writer delivers twenty-one truly fairy tales about virtuous and demonic beings, elements and ghosts, but also about people haunted by the burdens of memory and life. The power of fate and the unpredictable, the war between religious faith and lust, piety and blasphemy, but also the constant search of man for the unattainable are described by Singer - one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century - with the power of a long-forgotten simplicity.